I Hate iRobot's Roomba New Robots - It Needed to Happen

Last month, iRobot, the struggling US-based consumer robotics giant, announced the next stage of its revampment plan - 6 new robots with many variations.

The new Roomba lineup, Credit: iRobot

I hate the new robots

Revamping them meant an 18-month study on what customers want — unsurprisingly, it was not what the company was already making. Customers have already been trained by flashy foreign companies on what a great robot should look like.

iRobot decided to switch manufacturers and, in the process of "adjusting to customer needs and demands," eliminated everything about the company and Roomba, apart from the name.

The issue is that they look like every other robot out there and lack reasonable features. They left behind cozy and modern and Roomba, and entered modern, grey (Chinese-looking) machines with a lack of personality.

Feature-favorites like the dual roller design that had been accustomed to Roomba were left behind for no apparent reason.

It needed to happen

See, while we can't share a lot, and don't know much else either, I suspect that the manufacturer iRobot partnered with already has built a lot of these features.

In my opinion, they slapped the Roomba name and logo, added iRobotOS, and added a few features, and maybe some tweaks — but it definitely isn't a brand-new custom-built robot that they spent years developing.

Frankly, those days are over, and we might never see them again, or at least not for now. The company is struggling to make money as their stock keeps plummeting, and investors worry — the update is a big bet and a safer one, too. Redefining what they built years ago, chasing innovations was not (and still isn't) a viable option.

Update

iRobot announced two new robots — Roomba Plus 505 Combo and Roomba Max 705, featuring new features like a more advanced camera sensor, and the 705 even has the dual-roller system.

Finally, these quite expensive robots have returned to a bit of Roomba's past — they add a brand-new obstacle avoidance system, which, while different from past models, is far more advanced than the other systems in the current lineup and is still similar to those of the old lineup.

The new dual-roller system is also a nice change — something that the company perfected years ago. While I don't like how they market it as less tangled when that isn't exactly true, cleaning performance is better on the Max 705.

Ending on a positive note

No company is perfect, and iRobot wasn't too — they lacked innovation in their last peaceful moments (at least in their main product category) and let others take over them, however, they are trying to make a comeback.

It will be hard, but US companies are declining faster than ever, so I wish them the best of luck!