Ios

Tech and e-commerce giant Amazon has reportedly purchased iRobot, the maker of the popular automated home vacuum Roomba, for $1.7 billion. Jeff Bezos’ company is likely just as interested in the ability to map customers’ homes as it is in adding vacuums to its growing empire of products and services. Bloomberg reports that Amazon has purchased the maker of the popular robot vacuum cleaner Roomba, iRobot Corp, in a deal worth $1.7 billion. As a result, Amazon will now be making money selling the popular vacuum cleaners, but Bloomberg notes that the real value of the robots for Amazon is not increased profit, but access to a map of users’ homes. Roomba by iRobot (Tod Kurt/Flickr) Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Roombas use internal sensors to map and track users’ homes in order to vacuum hard-to-reach corners, this is data that could be valuable to Amazon in the future. Smart homes have been a priority for Amazon for some time, with their popular Alexa and Echo … [Read more...] about Amazon Buys Roomba Maker to Suck Up Your Dirt (and Your Data)