Last week, we learned that Roomba maker iRobot had been taken over by Chinese contract manufacturing company Picea, as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The news has caused concern among owners of Roomba vacuums, with uncertainty over product support and whether warranties will be honored.
I spoke with iRobot CEO Gary Cohen about what the future holds for the company’s products, and for its customers – and he assured me they’ve got nothing to worry about.
The app will continue, the products will continue, and we’ll continue to delight consumers with the current product line.
Gary Cohen, iRobot CEO
“It’s business as usual,” Cohen told me. “The app is working, the warranties are going to be honored.” The initial press release concerning the takeover said no immediate disruption was anticipated, and when I pressed him on whether long-term app and product support would continue, Cohen confirmed that was “correct”.
“It [Roombas ceasing to work] was never going to happen, but it’s not happening now,” he added. “Now that we have a path forward, the app will continue, the products will continue… We’ll have firmware updates on the products, which is one of the benefits of this category – we’re constantly putting software updates in the marketplace. So those will continue.”
A smooth transition
Once the brand behind some of the best robot vacuums on the market, in recent years iRobot had begun to lag behind the competition. But Cohen is feeling positive about what the deal means for the future of the brand. He confirmed to me that iRobot and Picea have already been developing new products and accessories, and we’ll be seeing the first launches as soon as spring (in the US and UK) 2026.
Part of the reason the transition should be relatively smooth is that Picea had already been working with iRobot for some time. The collaboration began before the failed Amazon acquisition in 2024, and Picea was involved when iRobot discontinued all its legacy products and replaced them with a completely new lineup earlier this year.
In fact, that lineup still hasn’t been entirely rolled out. Given that not all the products have been a roaring success (the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor earned an underwhelming two stars in our review), I was also interested to know if iRobot would be continuing with that lineup. Cohen confirmed that the plans are to continue to upgrade the current models, but also bring in new ones to keep up with the wider market.
“The European market has a very fast [product release] cycle, and we’re already on that gerbil wheel,” he added. “But we also have to have products that are stable. So I think you’ll see lineups that maybe have added features to them that either replace or live alongside [the current options].”
Cohen is mainly keen, however, to continue with the brand’s ‘customer-first’ approach rather than getting involved in an arms race towards ever-longer feature lists and ever-higher specs, as seems to be the focus in the wider market. Whatever happens, I’ll be watching with interest.
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