Culture writer Rob Walker analyzes the fall of Roomba at Fast Company:

Just a few years ago, iRobot, best known as the maker of the Roomba, was riding high, with annual revenue topping $1 billion; Amazon bid $1.7 billion to add it to the e-commerce giant’s home technology business. But that deal fell through, and now the Bedford, Massachusetts-based company has reported plunging revenue and steep losses, and recently warned investors of “substantial doubt” about its “ability to continue as a going concern.” With its share price down drastically, it’s now worth about $100 billion. How did the creator of the iconic round robot vacuum—which has sold more than 50 million units—get into this mess?

“iRobot made Roomba into an icon. Now, it’s in a huge mess,” March 21, 2025

How the mighty have fallen indeed. This video from 2013 got well over 13 million views:

So what went wrong? Walker, who studies brands and culture, thinks iRobot went into too many product lines:

This popularity reached a peak in the COVID-19 lockdown era, when many consumers had way too much time to obsess about their domestic environments. By then iRobot had begun exploring (and pouring R&D into) new products, most notably a robo-mop, but also a lawn mower, air-purifying devices, and educational products. The company still looked like an innovator and its share price soared beyond $130 in early 2021, briefly giving the company a valuation of more than $4 billion. “In a huge mess,”

But the new experiments mostly didn’t catch on like Roomba—meanwhile, the robo-vac competition multiplied. So in the vac business, iRobot soon faced stiff competition from China, in the form of Anker, Ecovacs, and Roborock. Significantly,

Lower prices were part of the equation, but competitors also brought design and technology innovations to the category, improving core functionality. While the whole category declined post-COVID, it’s growing again (in excess of 20 million units were distributed last year, up 11.2%)—but iRobot’s global share has shrunk to 13.7%, compared to 22.3% for Roborock. “In a huge mess,”

Then a deal with Amazon collapsed…

Even the cats have diversified:

Maybe the lesson here is, in uncertain times, stick to what you do better than anyone else and keep improving it.