[jpm_sd]

iRobot got crushed by Chinese competitors. Rethink failed early, they had a poor quality product and Universal made a much better cobot. And this new venture is pointless, there are 10 other companies in the Boston area alone doing warehouse automation...

[Animats]

The comment about humanoid forms raising expectations comes from Rethink's hype and failure. Rethink tried to solve manipulation and failed.

The Rethink hype video, with their cute little face on a screen.[1]

What the Rethink robot could actually do: take PC boards off a conveyor and put them in a fixture.[2] That's a routine robotic load/unload task. Like this one with Fanuc robots.[3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4mULTknb2I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnzmxJS4Rp4

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za5z1lb0hdU

[ACCount37]

The industry term, I believe, is "skill issue".

The conclusion to draw from "tried and failed" certainly isn't "it's impossible and everyone should give up on the notion".

[adabyron]

I'm a huge fan of the ease of cleaning & repairing iRobots, especially the earlier models. I don't know if the competitors match that but I have preferred their simplicity & quality.

China competitors are always going to be tough to beat in terms of margins.

[binoct]

Details of this situation aside, the take "doing x is pointless because lots of other people are doing it" is a bit rough.

[infecto]

Upvote for you sir. I was writing the same response as you posted the exact response. The only thing I did not mention that I will add here. iRobot was kind of a turd. They basically kept the same turd of a robot for a decade plus. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…