Other posters have pointed out that newer high-end $1000 Roombas do have cameras and some of those features you mention, but they make up a small portion of the Roomba fleet. The article is suggesting Amazon bought iRobot for access to that tiny amount of data. There's just no way that's the primary motivator. It makes so much more sense to think about this acquisition from the "consolidating household smart-device offerings under the Alexa brand" perspective.