FWIW, Consumer Reports gives the nod to iRobot Roomba over Trilobite and others on the market today. Probably due in part to its price and affordability [$330 for the iRobot Scheduler vice $1800 for the Trilobite]. While comparable on most features, iRobot beats Trilo on weight [6 vice 12 pounds] ; Noise [Excellent vice Very Good] ; Run time [70 minutes vice 50] ; and obviously a biggie: Edge Cleaning [Excellent for iRobot vice Poor for Trilo]. So do the big box USA retailers give iRobot the nod. Ironically, one of the ONLY bright spots today for big box retail stores and new vacuum sales is the iRobot. Despite the complete collapse of consumer buying and confidence.
And apparently investors like the stock too:
| iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ) |
| 13.11 +0.66 (5.30%) Oct 17 4:00pm ET |
| Open: | 12.02 | | High: | 14.11 | | Low: | 12.02 |
| | | Volume: | 0 | | Avg Vol: | 181,000 | | Mkt Cap: | 323.68M |
|
| Disclaimer |
| After Hours: 13.11 +0.00 (0.00%) Oct 17 4:15pm ET |
Main Street and Wall Street in agreement. That's highly unusual in the present financial environment. In the spring of 2005 when iRobot went public it sold for $12.50 a share. Albeit 3 plus years later and a precipitous drop in market value of over 30 percent, iRobot has maintained its high/low range well.
Intro'ed in the fall of 2002, the iRobot robotic sweeper has sweeped USA households IMHO. Roomba made the sweeper, as well as its sister the scooba [for washing floors], affordable to the masses from the start. To its credit, while iRobot's follow the leader competitors priced their products high to recoup R&D quickly, iRobot priced theirs low to recoup R&D slowly. Long term view rather than short. iRobot had the background for making robots but lacked the vacuum cleaner expertise. Electrolux had the vacuum expertise but lacked the robotic expertise. Obvioulsy the latter is more pricey and untested from an R&D perspective than the former. I'll vote for the robotic experience first then the vacuum cleaning experience second. And I'm an old school vacuum man through and through.
I suspect 5 to 10 years down the road, the iRobot will improve. Its quality and performance has gotten better with each successive generation: Now in the 5 th generation models. Not worst like some.
Robots are the latest and greatest vacuum product/technology in the industry in over 100 years. One of the few/only niche vacuum products doing well in the big box store venues. While some here post all interesting vacuum news for a certain brand, here's one that's been conspicuously overlooked:
http://robotstocknews.blogspot.com/
BTW, I'm guessing that Consumer Reports will do a more thorough review of the robotic vacuums soon since the October 2008 CR did not.
Carmine D.
This message was modified Oct 20, 2008 by CarmineD
