If you had a Roomba, especially in the early days of robot vacuums, it was a fairly crude machine in many ways. It will simply hover around your house, looking for something to grab, until its battery runs out or its (very small) tank is full. However, not that it matters. You probably love your Roomba. You might have given it a name.
on this issue of version historyWe tell the story of Roomba, and how it made spaces sleek. The VergeDavid Pierce and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy are joined by Colin Engle, co-founder and former CEO of iRobot, to bring the robovac revolution back to its roots, a group of engineers doing their best to make a business out of robots. Any type of robot. We explain how iRobot spent almost a decade developing the Roomba, almost broke it every time, and why the product made a splash for some surprising reasons. We also take a look at the huge market that grew up around the Roomba, and the way iRobot failed to keep up with it.
This is the second episode of the fourth season of version history. If you missed last week’s season premiere on Harmony Remote, make sure you get over there! Here’s how to get every episode and all our other fun stuff as soon as it drops:
If you want to learn more about Roomba’s long background story, here are some links to get you started:
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