WHEN ARE WE GOING TO HOLD ACOUNTABLE THOSE SPYING AND SENTENCE THEM????
ISN'T THIS A KIND OF HOME INVASION??
IT'S THE SMART METER COLLECTING THIS INFO FROM THE DEVICES!!
?Roomba's Next Big Step Is Selling Maps of Your Home to the Highest Bidder
Published: July 25, 2017
Source: gizmodo
The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximize efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning the friendly robot into a creeping, creepy little spy.
It’s not going to mow your lawn, but the freshly revealed, wifi-friendly Roomba 980 can be…
While it may seem like the information that a Roomba could gather is minimal, there’s a lot to be gleaned from the maps it’s constantly updating. It knows the floor plan of your home, the basic shape of everything on your floor, what areas require the most maintenance, and how often you require cleaning cycles, along with many other data points. And, according to Reuters, that data is the future of its business strategy:
- Quote :
- “There’s an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared,”(??IS IT IN THE FIRST LINES OF MANUAL??) said [iRobot CEO Colin] Angle.
[...]
Angle told Reuters that iRobot, which made Roomba compatible with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant in March, could reach a deal to sell its maps to one or more of the Big Three in the next couple of years.
If a company like Amazon, for example, wanted to improve its Echo smart speaker, the Roomba’s mapping info could certainly help out. Spatial mapping could improve audio performance by taking advantage of the room’s acoustics. Do you have a large room that’s practically empty? Targeted furniture ads might be quite effective. The laser and camera sensors would paint a nice portrait for lighting needs that would factor into smart lights that adjust in real time. Smart AC units could better control airflow. And additional sensors added in the future would gather even more data from this live-in double agent.
And while Amazon seems like an obvious buyer—the kind that would pay huge money to shut out its competitors—don’t forget that Apple has its Siri speaker coming and it has a lot of catching up to do. The kind of data that iRobot is offering would give any developer a huge opportunity to fine tune the experience.
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