This is one of the clearest example of overzealous regulation leading to the West losing one of its strongest household robot brands to Chinese upstarts.
Robot was not in a particularly financial good shape beforehand, but at least had models that could compete against the Chinese competitors. Because it was running out of cash, it tried to get acquired by Amazon for $1.4B. This was, by no means, an ideal deal, but it would have put the company on stable financial footing, and let it continue as a brand (similar to Alexa or Ring).
However, European and FTC regulators prevented the deal, saying that this was an invasion of home privacy by the big-bad Amazon. Fast forwards three years and today, all of the robot vacuums you buy today are Chinese-made and iRobot is about to declare bankruptcy. We traded off home privacy from Amazon to an upstart Chinese company and lost a leading $1.4B company. Great. I don't know about you, but I trust Amazon more with my data than a Chinese company.
Companies don't have a right to life. Nor would selling to Amazon guarantee the product had any future -- Amazon may pick apart the pieces they want and kill the robot anyway.
And you can choose to not trust Amazon as well as $random$ Chinese company to your data. It's still possible to get an upright vacuum or broom.
Ring is a shell of its former self, has implemented a bunch of things nobody wants, has bricked other products, was giving away camera data to anyone in the government that asked, among other terrible things. It is a brand to be avoided and is never recommended anymore in the smart home community.
We would actually be better off if Ring had died as a company instead of being sold to Amazon.
Robot was not in a particularly financial good shape beforehand, but at least had models that could compete against the Chinese competitors. Because it was running out of cash, it tried to get acquired by Amazon for $1.4B. This was, by no means, an ideal deal, but it would have put the company on stable financial footing, and let it continue as a brand (similar to Alexa or Ring).
However, European and FTC regulators prevented the deal, saying that this was an invasion of home privacy by the big-bad Amazon. Fast forwards three years and today, all of the robot vacuums you buy today are Chinese-made and iRobot is about to declare bankruptcy. We traded off home privacy from Amazon to an upstart Chinese company and lost a leading $1.4B company. Great. I don't know about you, but I trust Amazon more with my data than a Chinese company.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/amazon-irobot-abandon-... https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23379036/amazon-irobot-ro...