During the last decade, iRobot watched as Chinese companies took away the business they had led for a long time.
iRobot was not just a leader in their sector, they were years ahead of the competition in technology and enjoyed the benefits of being embedded in the public’s mind as a synonym with home vacuum robots.
Amongst other things, we can point at a lack of focus from iRobot as the main reason of their downfall. Despite LIDAR being the best system for indoor navigation and mapping, iRobot focused their R&D efforts on a camera system that lets the robot recognize its position using computer vision algorithms. The reasoning behind this decision is not that they believed that their products would work better this way, but that it would allow them to recognize the items in their user’s home for data analysis to be used for ads. That would be very interesting for a company like Amazon, which was looking to buy iRobot but ultimately failed to do so.
Sadly, this approach was not very interesting for users concerned about their privacy. They also decided to pursue side businesses like air purifiers, while they were already losing ground to Chinese companies at the moment.
LIDAR offers excellent results for in-home navigation, and is able to perfectly map the environment. While iRobot was spending their efforts on dead ends, their competition was investing heavily in what is nowadays the state of the art in the industry.
I’ve spent the last year using a Dyson V15 that is Dyson’s top-tier vacuum, and seeing it now, I cannot avoid thinking about iRobot. I think Dyson can do a lot better.
Yeah, the device itself works really well, but its build quality leaves much to be desired. Now that it’s lost its original shine, it feels pretty much like a flimsy bunch of plastic. There are just too many potential failing points and it feels designed to break. I had to make a warranty claim for a small plastic button in the Submarine accessory module. Mind, it’s a 250€ accessory that doesn’t really do that much. For a top-tier product like this, why did they decide to go for such fragile tiny components with complex mechanisms instead of, for example, a metallic button?
Dyson is supposed to be the best of the best, but their products lack premium feel (except maybe, right after the unboxing) and transmit a worrying sense of planned obsolescence. Yes, they are technologically advanced but not unreachable anymore by the competition, and find themselves a bit in the middle of nowhere: not cheap enough to compete by price, not expensive enough to be able to improve their build quality to a more premium approach.
Considering the value for money, they can also improve quality without increasing their prices, or go for an even higher tier of products (+1k€ robot vacuums are not uncommon).
I think it would be a wise move because, doing a bit of research around some of the main Chinese companies that are taking over the robot market (Dreame, Roborock, Eufy…), I see that all of them are already offering really interesting alternatives to Dyson Vacuums. And I also see their products are already more feature-rich than what Dyson has to offer: automatic emptying bins, robot+cordless integrated systems, special accessories. And they are a lot, a lot cheaper.
Dyson enjoys being synonym with cordless vacuum cleaners just like iRobot enjoyed being equivalent to home robots, but how long will it take for the competition to switch the narrative?
It only takes one of them to offer something that really clicks with the public, and it will be very hard for Dyson to revert the momentum.
Take that, along with the fact that Dyson seems to be more focused on weird endeavors like headphones (and even weirder, some headphones with an integrated air-purifier mask), lighting lamps and hair dryers; and it takes me back to iRobot’s focus on side businesses while they lose track of their main source of income and reputation. Yeah, some of those investments can be an opportunity (afaik hair products are a big success) but they would do well not getting too comfortable in their privileged position.
Daniel Barca 