Amazon Purchases Roomba Maker To Suckup Your Dirt and Your Data

Tech, e-commerce giant Amazon, has reportedly bought iRobot (the maker of the Roomba automated vacuum cleaner) for $1.7billion. Jeff Bezos’s company may be just as keen on the ability to map customers homes as in adding vacuums and other products to its expanding array of services.

Bloomberg reports Amazon purchased iRobot Corp., the manufacturer of Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner. The deal is worth $1.7 billion. Amazon will make money by selling popular vacuum cleaners. However, Bloomberg points out that Amazon’s real profit isn’t increased profits, but the access to maps of homes.

Roombas uses internal sensors to track and map users’ houses in order to clean hard-to reach corners. This data could prove to be very valuable for Amazon in the near future. Amazon has been making smart homes a top priority since the launch of their Echo and Alexa devices. Amazon Echo speakers have outsold rivals Apple, Google and Google’s Echo devices with 9.9 million sold between March and April.

Breitbart News reported on iRobot’s plan to turn maps of Roomba owners’ homes into cash in 2017.

[iRobot CEO] Angle recently told Reuters that some of the advanced Roomba devices use situational awareness to make a mental map of the space around them and then saves that information for future use. Angle thinks he can sell the data to any of the three major tech companies (Apple, Google, or Facebook) within the next few year.

Angle’s comments have been well received amongst investors with iRobot stock reaching $102 in June, up from $35 a year ago, giving it a market value of nearly $2.5 billion on 2016 revenues of $660 million. Red Mountain Capital managing partner Willem Mesdag believes the new company direction could be profitable. He previously purchased stock in iRobot.

Mesdag appears to think that an acquisition by any of three large tech companies of iRobot would prove extremely profitable for them. “I believe they have a tremendous advantage in first-mover,” he said. However, the competition is focused on cleaning products and not mapping robots. Consumer rights activists have expressed concern about large-scale tech company’s selling of floor plans.

Amazon’s robot household, Astro is not yet available. Although the robot can track and map inside a home’s interior, it will be unable to do so with the Roomba appliances that Amazon currently owns. Marketers can use the maps to determine how wealthy someone is by determining their house size. A floor with many toys for children will indicate that the person has kids. Conversely, a house without furniture may easily be sold.

Apple previously spoke out about its desire to map people’s homes. In June, Apple unveiled a tool that makes 3-D models using a laser scanner. It is called “RoomPlan .”

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View more at Bloomberg.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan

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