Home LivingAppliancesVacuum CleanersAmazon hoovering up iRobot could mean cheaper Roombas - and that could be a problemiRobot is Amazon’s main robotic rival – so Amazon’s buying it. Is this a robot revolution we’ll come to regret?When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingAppliancesVacuum CleanersAmazon hoovering up iRobot could mean cheaper Roombas - and that could be a problemiRobot is Amazon’s main robotic rival – so Amazon’s buying it. Is this a robot revolution we’ll come to regret?When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
iRobot is Amazon’s main robotic rival – so Amazon’s buying it. Is this a robot revolution we’ll come to regret?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: iRobot)
(Image credit: iRobot)
How paranoid are you feeling? ThenewsthatAmazonintends to acquire home robot firm iRobot, maker of the superb Roomba range, has got manysmart homefans excited and privacy campaigners concerned. Is Amazon buying iRobot to make better vacuums, or to vacuum up the last of your privacy?
Let’s start with the products. Mergers and acquisitions take time, so if the deal goes ahead we’re not suddenly going to see iRobot veer off in another direction like a cheap Roomba copy; it’ll be business as usual for a while. But over time we should see extensiveAlexaintegration and perhaps some interesting new robots too.
Amazon has experimented with robots before in the form of itsAmazon Astrodevice, but iRobot does the robot thing much better: instead of trying to make robots that look like the ones we’ve seen on TV and in movies, it makes thebest robotsthat do practical tasks brilliantly. That focus – making robots that aren’t just anEcho Showon wheels – could do some amazing things with Amazon’s money.
As for the privacy… that’s more complicated.
Does Amazon want to map your home with a vacuum?
When the news of the iRobot acquisition broke, I joked that its home mapping meant there’d be no hiding place from Jeff Bezos’s stormtroopers if you decided not to renew your Prime membership. But there are genuine concerns about just how much data Amazon is – ahem – hoovering up already. This is the firm ofRingand Blink smart home security cameras, including some of thebest video doorbells; the firm whose Sidewalk shared network could follow you around outside; whose recent purchases include One Medical, sparking concerns that Amazon wants to look at your medical data too. Do we really want Amazon in every room, aware of everything we and our families do at every moment of the day?
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