I feel like if a company just focused on the basics (ie reliable cleaning) instead of a bunch of different marketing gimmicks, it will work out long term.
This reminds me of what Steve Jobs said about Xerox[0]. After achieving market leadership in their industry, engineering at iRobot seems to have been pushed aside in the company's decision making process.
Is this a consequence of being a publicly traded company? After all, pushing consumables and subscription services requires less capital and makes more money compared to developing a better robot. The $1.7B exit seems like a good outcome for a stagnant (relative to its peers) company.
I think over time leadership gets frustrated with seemingly lack of progress on the foundation, while efforts to change the high level features (app, smart home integration, GPS, etc) distract from the core product. Just my 2c