It was once the pride and joy of the emerging robotics industry in Massachusetts. But now it’s facing bankruptcy, unable to find a suitor after its failed hook up with Amazon, as the BBJ reports. How did Bedford’s iRobot go from techno star to bankrupt bum? There are many reasons, as the NYT’s Liam McCabe lists. But I’d argue that iRobot’s ultimate problem is that it’s been a one-hit wonder in a very limited consumer robotics market. Beyond its famous Roomba vacuum cleaner, iRobot just hasn’t developed other hit products. And those that came close to being hits (at least in terms of techno coolness) weren’t within the narrow confines of the consumer robotics market, such as PackBot, which was part of iRobot’s defense and security business before the firm sold it off in 2016 to focus on home robots – even though the industrial robotics market is far bigger and more lucrative than the home robotics market. … 

Meanwhile, Roomba is losing market share by the day, due to a “glut of cheap, decent competitors” that offer  “largely indistinguishable” product quality, McCabe writes.

How much longer can a company survive with only one primary product in a narrow, highly competitive consumer market? My guess is not much longer.

Image above via Wikipedia.

Update — 11.14.25 –– Sounds pretty lame. But who knows? From the BBJ: “Robot manicure machine starts global rollout with Braintree Ulta.”