From robovacs for small homes to a Roomba for your lawn, here are 4 things we can expect to see from iRobot – according to the CEO
Exclusive: There are some intriguing plans for the original robot vacuum brand following recent company takeover.
(Image credit: Future)
In mid-December we learned that iRobot – the company behind the iconic robot vacuum brand Roomba – was being taken over by contract manufacturing company Picea, as a result of years of financial struggles.
I caught up with iRobot CEO Gary Cohen shortly after the news broke, to find out what this meant for the brand. He confirmed that in the short term it would be business as usual (including continuing to support the current line of bots), but beyond that, Cohen – who was brought in to help get iRobot back on track in May 2024 – has big plans for the robovac veteran.
Here are 4 things that could be heading our way from iRobot…
1. Technophobe-friendly robot vacuums
Cohen describes how, when opening a Roomba box, he gets "PTSD": "It's not a consumer-friendly experience. It's like I'm scared of connecting it – is it going to connect to the Wi-Fi? What is 2.4 gigahertz versus 5? Why can't these things just seamlessly get set up so I don't have to worry about it?"
The iRobot teams are working on reducing these pain points and, as a result, making robot vacuums more accessible to more people. In fact, Cohen thinks ignoring consumer needs was one of the big mistakes that ultimately contributed to iRobot ending up in this situation.
Robot vacuums can be intimidating (Image credit: Future)
This is in contrast to the rest of the market, which seems to be geared entirely towards adding more features and increasing robot vacuum specs. While Cohen concedes that iRobot is "never going to win feature wars with competitors", he also thinks this isn't the right approach when the robot vacuum category only has 20% market penetration.
"We have to grow the category. That's how we're going to grow our business," he says. "It just has to work, right? And if it works, people will get into the category more."
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2. Robot vacuums for smaller spaces
Beyond improving basic usability, Cohen also wants to tackle different consumer segments. Right now, the trend is for ever-bigger docks that take care of all kinds of maintenance tasks for you. Those have their place – there are a number of excellent examples in my – but they aren't right for every customer.
