A few days ago, Amazon announced that it would be purchasing iRobot – the makers of the popular Roomba robot vacuum cleaners. The news was announced earlier this month on 5th August. If the deal gets approved, the deal is set to be worth around $1.7 billion.
The deal needs to be approved by regulators in the US and the shareholders of iRobot first. But if the deal goes through, the current CEO of iRobot Colin Angle, will remain in the job.
Amazon has been snapping up smart home product companies for a while, it purchased Ring in 2018, eero in 2019 and now iRobot in 2022. iRobot has been an independent company for 32 years, after being founded in 1990. The very first Roomba was launched back in 2002 and has since become a sales hit.
Amazon hasn’t said a whole lot surrounding the acquisition however. Amazon Devices Senior VP Dave Limp has said that the two companies look forward to working together and he will focus on the ability of iRobot to “reinvent how people clean.”
In 2022, Roomba isn’t the only company making robot vacuums, Dyson famously spent 20 years making sure their Dyson 360 Heurist would work, but companies such as Eufy, Roborock and Shark have all come out with their own versions.
It’ll be interesting to see what Amazon does with iRobot, but some users on Twitter aren’t happy about the acquisition:
Ugh…now my robot vacuum is gonna be reporting to Amazon the layout of my house and how dirty my floors are. https://t.co/3U9Onbn3oB
— Crosstalk Solutions (@crosstalksol) August 5, 2022
