iRobot’s Roomba was as soon as the most important title in robotic vacuums – so large that some nonetheless use it as a synonym for the entire product class. So what occurred to the corporate to trigger it to fall from its lofty perch to the purpose the place it was pressured to file for chapter, saved from oblivion due to a takeover by Chinese language contract producer Picea?
An costly method
iRobot co-founder and former CEO Colin Angle has referred to as the Picea takeover “profoundly disappointing” and “avoidable”, blaming the collapse of a possible Amazon acquisition, which was nixed by regulators, for the place iRobot finally discovered itself in (you may learn his assertion to TechRadar right here.)
Cohen, nonetheless, feels the problems started nicely earlier than that acquisition was even on the horizon.
My predecessor’s imaginative and prescient of related houses and camera-based imaginative and prescient expertise was nice, however we could not execute in opposition to it.
Gary Cohen, iRobot CEO
“The Amazon deal was an enormous setback for the corporate, however there have been a few years of points that led as much as the state of affairs we’re in, and it is essential to focus on these with out denigrating the prior group,” he instructed me. “My predecessor was a visionary, and he was good, and […] his imaginative and prescient of related houses and camera-based imaginative and prescient expertise was nice, however we could not execute in opposition to it.
“After I joined again in Might 2024 it was obvious to me, and to among the of us that I had assigned to assist me do that restructuring, that we wanted to vary the best way we had been doing enterprise,” Cohen instructed me.
Cohen remembers how he inherited excessive fixed-cost contracts and “over-engineered” merchandise. He explains that at that time all of the tooling, engineering and buying was taking place within the US, with solely the ultimate manufacture going down abroad. It made for a really costly course of.
The daring choice was made to axe your complete legacy product line and substitute it, and below Cohen the corporate additionally adopted a extra built-in (and cost-effective) relationship with its producer – which at this level was the identical Picea Robotics that now owns iRobot.
Underneath the earlier mannequin, the contract producer was mainly drafted in proper on the finish to be the ‘screwdriver’ that simply assembled the product. The brand new method noticed iRobot defining the specs it needed, however with Picea getting extra concerned with “engineering improvement, tooling, buying and even testing”.
It wasn’t sufficient to avoid wasting iRobot from being bought, but it surely put the corporate on a less expensive trajectory, and noticed it set up an in depth working relationship with Picea.
Excessive price, low satisfaction
Excessive prices had been solely a part of the difficulty. “We weren’t aggressive within the market,” continues Cohen. “Our price of products was too excessive. The merchandise had been onerous to make, but in addition, importantly, we weren’t delighting shoppers.”
iRobot misplaced a chance within the market as a result of they weren’t shut sufficient to the patron, or did not trouble to hearken to the patron.
Gary Cohen, iRobot CEO
Cohen says if he’d been concerned with the corporate at an earlier level, he would have prioritized buyer wants. “On the time when iRobot was going through a few of its aggressive challenges, I might have taken the competitors extra significantly, and I might have arrange a client framework mannequin,” he tells me.
“So for example, shoppers needed these mixture mops and vacuums. The iRobot group on the time mentioned, ‘No, we’ll develop the perfect mop and the perfect vacuum.’ Which was nice from a technical standpoint, however shoppers did not go there. So [iRobot] misplaced a chance within the market as a result of they weren’t shut sufficient to the patron, or did not trouble to hearken to the patron.”
iRobot was equally behind the curve when it got here to growing a multifunctional dock – one that did not simply empty the bot’s small onboard dustbin, however might additionally do issues like refilling its water tank and even washing and drying its mop pads. It launched its first try in 2024 – the Roomba Combo 10 Max – however by Cohen’s personal admission it “wasn’t the perfect, best product”.
“So [at that time] we’re dropping market share in Europe as a result of we’re not collaborating. And people are all strategic selections that had been made a number of years in the past.”
Tariff turmoil
In fact, exterior components did additionally play their half. Cohen had been attempting to promote iRobot within the first half of 2025, however large adjustments to US tariff coverage generated an excessive amount of uncertainty for potential consumers.
“It actually curtailed our pipeline of choices, as a result of there have been many corporations that had been serious about us that had tariff publicity, and so they mentioned, ‘Properly, that is an excessive amount of uncertainty. We will not purchase an organization proper now.'” Cohen remembers. “We did lastly get one firm that was actually serious about shopping for us, however they could not come to phrases with our major lender on the time, which was Carlyle. And in order that deal fell aside in October.”
Cohen needed to shortly pivot to attempt to save the corporate. “Chapter Seven [liquidation bankruptcy] was not one thing I actually needed to have occur,” he instructed me. “I had an excessive amount of invested within the firm and the staff, and so we went to Picea and mentioned would you be serious about shopping for the corporate? And that is the way it materialized.”
So what does the longer term appear like now, below Picea’s stewardship? When it comes to instant results, Cohen says it is “enterprise as common”, with beforehand developed merchandise already being showcased to European retailers now, for launch in spring 2026.
Long term, he is feeling optimistic that this may flip issues round, with a brand new, consumer-first method, and one which focuses on making robotic vacuums accessible to a wider viewers. We’ll be watching with curiosity.
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