Setback
iRobot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware, in a deal to be taken over by Picea, its main Chinese manufacturer. Shareholders were set to lose their whole investment.
A delay, pause or setback
What the source says
“China-based Picea will acquire a 100% equity interest after agreeing to cancel $180 million in first lien claims”
What it means
Robot vacuums and mops, from Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, iRobot, Shark, is at stage 5 of 5 on our ladder: regulator-cleared or mass market. A setback stays on the record next to the milestones; the stage moves down only when the rules say so.
Human help: Our sources report it working without human help.
More on Robot vacuums and mops
- IDC counted 32.7 million home cleaning robots shipped worldwide in 2025, up 20% on the year before. Smart vacuums were nearly three-quarters of them.
- IDC said Chinese brands now lead several home cleaning robot categories, and that iRobot, which created the market, fell out of the global top five vacuum makers in 2025.
- A man trying to steer his DJI Romo robot vacuum with a game controller found he could reach about 7,000 Romo vacuums in 24 countries, including live camera feeds, microphone audio and home floor plans. DJI said it fixed the flaw with updates on 8 and 10 February.
- Picea completed its takeover of iRobot, which left bankruptcy as a private company wholly owned by Picea.
- Amazon dropped its plan to buy iRobot. iRobot said it would lay off 31% of its staff, about 350 people, and its CEO Colin Angle stepped down.
- MIT Technology Review reported that photos taken inside homes by Roomba test robots, including one of a woman on the toilet, were shared online in 2020 by gig workers paid to label the images for AI training. iRobot said they came from special development robots, not ones sold to customers.