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Newer robots from companies iterating on the technology, like Roborock, can detect cables/shoes/stuff left on the floor and just drive around them. They're a lot better than what Roomba is selling, and much better at dealing with the average home. I've been really impressed with ours after having a similar, frustrating experience with one from iRobot.

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This is accurate. Their competitor, the Ecovacs Deebot, just push an OTA update making cable detection way better. In a way the previous comment encapsulates all the misconceptions about robovacs. I was recently surprised to learn how good they are because my only basis for comparison was my friend's failure of a Roomba that's always getting into shenanigans.

Right–that's what I found so weird about the Amazon acquisition of iRobot is that Roombas are clearly a few generations of technology behind their competitors like Neato, Ecovacs and Roborock...but they must have a bunch of similar technology currently under development and on the way to market. What Roomba does have is name recognition, which seems to mean that most people think that robot vacuums aren't very good–I suspect Amazon sees they get tons of sales on their platform, has a good R&D team/patents, and smells an opportunity to own the space by pouring money into it and helping them compete (and, of course, putting them to the top of Amazon results, as they always do).

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