The company is still “number one,” said Elizabeth Parks, president of market research firm Parks Associates in Dallas. But it’s a shaky number one. Parks estimates that iRobot had nearly two-thirds of the robot vacuum market in 2018, but now holds only a 48 percent share. Meanwhile, rival robot makers like SharkNinja, Roborock, Eufy, and Ecovacs have been steadily chipping away.
One possible reason, according to Parks, is concern about data privacy. More advanced versions of the Roomba and other robots use visual sensors to generate detailed maps of the user’s home. This information is shared with the manufacturers to develop more advanced products, but it could also potentially be used to monitor users.
From the article, "IRobot faces a murky future amid rising Roomba competitors" by Hiawatha Bray
Virtual Reality products may once have been touted as the hot holiday gift for gamers, but reports are showing sales of the products to be lagging behind initial estimates, and the problem may be gett...
As a benchmark, U.S. broadband households this year own an average of eight connected computing, entertainment or mobile devices plus another two connected home devices, according to the Parks Associa...
Basically, people will move toward the communications/entertainment device that is easiest to use and probably the least expensive. And fitting into both of those categories are services like Netflix,...
According to research from Parks Associates, about half of the 63% of broadband households that subscribe to OTT services subscribe to more than one. The most popular “service-stack” is to subscribe t...
