[nobodyandproud]

Vorwerk group. No idea, but it’s pointless imho.

Roborock and Eufy (and other competitors) clearly either stole or reverse-engineered the tech.

If the IP had enough value then I’m sure Vorwerk would’ve pursued it in court.

But here we are.

[darkwater]

Vorwerk makes really good hardware and home appliances. Its only negative part is the almost pyramidal sales style. It's not really pyramidal as in the scam, because you actually buy something and you don't need to become a seller, but it uses "regular housewives" [1] as sellers.

[1] at least 30 years ago, now many of them do also another paid work (not Vorwerk-related) on top of unpaid house chores.

[nobodyandproud]

Any idea why they just sat on the product? Even today, I feel the product is unmatched.

Zero creep factor (ignoring later cloud offering)..

[shellfishgene]

They still make a robot vacuum: https://www.vorwerk.com/de/de/c/home/landingpages/kobold/sta...

[darkwater]

Well, I don't know how much you can innovate in that space, while keeping things reliable for decades like Vorwerk does. I own a (2n hand) TM31 that's probably 15 years old now, and I have friend with the TM21 (I guess?) which is like the first version and it has over 20 years now and it's still perfectly working.

Last versions, with big LC touchscreen, recipes on a cartridge o downloaded from Internet, and now I read that latest one can reach 160C to caramelize things or can do slow cooking.

I mean, I don't feel like they sat on the product, although the other day I saw a cooking robot from some other (japanese?) manufacturer which had 2 bowls in the same machine to cook 2 things at the same time. That seems an interesting feature Thermomix is missing.

[nobodyandproud]

Not all innovation or value offerings are technical, though admittedly it's what first drew me in.

Example: I buy an iPhone over the competition because it's a superior experience. Their walled-garden (RIP) made for a less appealing attack vector than Android, their commitment to privacy is real (a reflection of Tim Cook), and how they as a company project those values against government entities are all positives.

Before then, I never imagined buying Apple products; and always believed they were overpriced (in many respects, yes) but there are other harder-to-quantify benefits.

[sudosysgen]

There is not much tech to steal here. 2D lidar mapping is something a high schooler could do 10+ years ago, and that was their core tech. The value was in executing earlier and better, and applying existing tech to robovacuums. If they could have sued they likely would, this is a valuable market.

[nobodyandproud]

It’s not just mapping.

Also, I recall Neato was often purchased and cannibalized by researchers for its lidar.

This was all cutting edge 10+ years ago. Even today, the features it supported offline then is just matched at best today in 2025/2026.

Not exceeded; and often crippled when offline.

[sudosysgen]

There is not that much more to it than lidar and 2D slam as far as the core technology. There are a lot more features yes but they are not nearly as valuable. I agree they are better, but that's for reason of execution and non-enshitiffication, not core tech.

[nobodyandproud]

Unintentional I’m sure, but that’s a goalpost shift.

What made cloudless Neato amazing was how many real-life edge cases it handled well. That’s where the innovation was.

It’s the integration of the vacuum and sensors along with great software that allowed it to handle furniture shifts and creeping up to stairs without being confused.

I think of it this way: Tesla’s core tech were batteries and electric motors. Nothing groundbreaking. But integrating the core tech as a vehicle took real effort and trial-and-error; then more, in order to make a manufacturing pipeline.

Sorry if I sound bitter. I fell in love with the product on my first purchase and was mortified when the market utterly failed to reward them for the innovation.