iRobot builders signed this first-generation Roomba Clever Floorvac. | Credit score: Joe Jones
Few corporations have executed extra for robotics than iRobot since its founding in 1990. iRobot has been the family identify in shopper robotics, placing greater than 50 million Roomba robotic vacuums into properties world wide. The Roomba introduced robots out of the lab and into thousands and thousands of properties, sparking curiosity, consolation, and even affection for machines.
iRobot’s PackBots have been used to maintain U.S. army personnel secure by figuring out and disposing of improvised explosive units (IEDs), exploring caves and bunkers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aiding in city fight situations. PackBots had been additionally used to discover the World Commerce Middle collapse after 9/11 and the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan.
iRobot additionally made an enduring influence on STEM training with its Create platform and Root instructional robotic. I’ve nice recollections of my 11-year-old daughter coding with the Root robotic when she was youthful. These merchandise helped encourage the following era of roboticists and engineers.
Past its robots, iRobot alumni have gone on to do nice issues throughout the robotics trade and others.
Now, iRobot is in main monetary hassle. The corporate that when outlined shopper robotics is drowning in debt, battered by low-cost rivals, geopolitical points, and a failed acquisition by Amazon that regulators killed. The corporate mentioned final week that it “could also be pressured to considerably curtail or stop operations and would doubtless search chapter safety” if it may possibly’t discover further sources of capital.
Saving iRobot may not make monetary sense. However given how a lot cash is being poured into humanoids for the house, cleansing up this iRobot mess is hardly the worst wager.
I’m studying Joe Jones’ ebook Dancing with Roomba. Jones and others at iRobot pushed extremely exhausting to create the unique Roomba, succeeding the place many others had failed. Even right now, fashionable roboticists can study many classes from the early days of the Roomba and iRobot. The corporate was relentless at the beginning, doing something essential to ship robots. It pivoted its enterprise many instances. It confronted repeated skepticism, funding challenges and technical hurdles. It withstood lengthy growth cycles and invented new applied sciences to unravel an actual buyer ache level.
After going public on the again of the Roomba’s large success, iRobot traded in its earlier relentlessness for warning and by no means discovered the following Roomba. It shelved a robotic lawnmower after 15-plus years of R&D, undersold its army robotics division, and had different failed merchandise.
Do you know: Quiet Logistics is a 3PL that used the Kiva Techniques cellular robots. Quiet reached out to iRobot after Amazon pulled the Kiva robots off the market after buying the model in 2012. Quiet Logistics had an concept for a robotic it wished iRobot to construct. Bruce Welty, co-founder of Quiet Logistics, informed us iRobot by no means responded to his outreach. The robotic he wished iRobot to construct changed into Locus Robotics’ LocusBot, which just lately surpassed 6 billion buyer picks.
Nonetheless, iRobot’s decline these final couple of years has been robust to observe. Positive, shopping for iRobot proper now may not look enticing on a spreadsheet. The stability sheet is ugly. The margins are skinny. Income is declining (it made $681.85 million in 2024, a 23.44% lower from 2023). However some corporations are too foundational to let fail. Saving iRobot isn’t about saving a product line. It’s about saving a legacy.
The robotics trade wants extra iconic corporations. And lots of iconic corporations weren’t at all times financially steady. Apple practically went bankrupt in 1997; Tesla confronted monetary hassle earlier than its authorities mortgage; auto and airline corporations have been bailed out a number of instances; Marvel filed for chapter in 1996; and Nintendo was close to spoil earlier than pivoting to video video games within the ‘70s. There are numerous examples of corporations in conditions like iRobot’s being saved.
iRobot has additionally turn out to be a popular culture staple, showing on reveals like The Workplace, Parks and Recreation, Trendy Household, The Simpsons, and Saturday Evening Dwell. It’s featured in numerous memes and viral movies, and other people have even named their Roombas.
iRobot isn’t simply one other struggling firm. It’s a pillar of the robotics trade. Letting it disappear could be a loss far larger than its present monetary state of affairs. Will anybody step up and save iRobot? Let’s give it a second probability to return to its relentless roots and as soon as once more pave the way in which for robotics.
