The Morning After: Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy

iRobot, the company that brought robotic vacuum cleaners to homes and popular culture, has filed for bankruptcy. It plans to sell all assets to its primary supplier, the Chinese company Picea Robotics. Investors “will experience a total loss and not receive recovery on their investment” if the deal is approved, iRobot said. The company didn’t discuss how the move might affect its employees in the US or elsewhere.

Amazon dropped its $1.7 billion acquisition of the company last year after a veto threat from European regulators, leaving the Roomba maker with no other option. Political scrutiny came on two fronts: The company was also reportedly hit hard by Trump’s tariffs in Vietnam, where it manufactures products for the US market.

iRobot launched its first Roomba in 2002, arguably inventing the world of robot vacuums — and the first robots to enter many of our homes. Competition from rivals has chipped away at its dominance, with other companies coming in at both lower and higher prices, like Roborock, Dyson and Anker’s Eufy.

— Mat Smith

The other big stories this morning

I like the illuminated charging bowl too.

IKEA’s revamp of its smart home products doesn’t end with Matter support. It also has some new Qi wireless chargers. First up, the $10 VÄSTMÄRKE combines a PopSockets-style phone grip with cable storage in a donut-shaped package.

It can magnetically attach to iPhones with MagSafe or Pixel phones with Google’s Pixelsnap magnets. Then there’s the $25 VÄSTMÄRKE wireless charger with lighting, a bowl-shaped charging pad in the center for your smartphone or wireless earbuds.

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More color and better dimming than a standard LCD.

LG says it will unveil its LG Micro RGB evo TV at CES 2026, but ahead of that, it shared some preliminary information about the screen. Instead of just white lights, Micro RGB means the backlight can be any hue, thanks to individually controlled red, green and blue Micro LEDs, offering a wider color array. This approach is midway between OLED’s individual-pixel lighting and TVs that use typical mini-LEDs.

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2025 saw AI slop sludge into every nook and cranny of online life.

Merriam-Webster has selected “slop” for its 2025 word of the year. It’s defined as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” We’ve seen an absolute deluge of AI slop this year, from fake movie trailers on YouTube to AI-generated bands on Spotify. It was (unfortunately) one of our winners of 2025.

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