Amazon and iRobot said regulatory concerns made it impossible for the deal to move forward, sending the Roomba makers' shares plummeting.
Amazon terminates iRobot deal, Roomba maker to lay off 31% of staff::Amazon and iRobot said regulatory concerns made it impossible for the deal to move forward, sending the Roomba makers' shares plummeting.
Is it a busted company? I quickly found data for 2009-2022 and they've registered profit for every year till 2022 when they had their first loss. They've been around since the 90s.
True story. I hate all those cloud devices, which can run perfectly locally. And doesn't require a subscription. I even see it back in cars nowadays, stupid subscriptions.
Reasonably sure i can set up local control through home assistant. Haven’t looked too hard but I’ve always liked the featuresets on the roombas and the Amazon connection was the reason I haven’t done too much investigation yet.
Technically, no, iRobot and Amazon "mutually agreed" to terminate the deal, most likely cause the EU probably wasn't going to approve, but:
The EU was set to deliberate in mid Feb, so they didn't (yet)
It's also possible that Amazon used the likely rejection of the EU as an excuse to back out of a deal they didn't want anymore
I don't know which one it is, but if Amazon wanted to close, they would've been willing to make concessions to the EU to get their approval, rather than backing out.
iRobot has rested on their laurels and patent portfolio for years while others (ie Roborock) have lapped their products. Looks like they'll continue to decline into obscurity and count on patent troll lawsuits to survive. BTW, anyone want to buy a POS Roomba i7 that beats the hell out of furniture and baseboards while constantly getting jammed rollers?
Why the fuck would you name your robotics company that?
Ya know, when I named my Red Car "Christine" it was a joke and one for my own amusement, if it were a new model of car that I was selling there are a couple of reasons I wouldn't have done that.
Fyi: This is the company that makes roombas and thats the name people recognize. They where founded as irobot in the 90s and it was clearly copying apple.
Its almost suprising they didnt sue the irobot movie for its title, being that the original titel by Isaac Asimov spelled it “i, robot”