Your Vacuum might be spying on you

Amazon's recent bid to buy technology company iRobot may lead to your Roomba spying on you.

Image Credit: unsplash.com

Earlier this week Amazon agreed to buy the robotics technology company iRobot for $1.7 billion dollars.

This acquisition will see iRobot shareholders paid $61 per share, a 22% increase to its closing price last Thursday.

The Roomba is one of the most notable products from iRobot and is the main reason for amazon’s acquisition.

But is Amazon really passionate about cleaning everyone’s home or are they in it for all the sweet data that comes with it.

Roomba uses technology to map out the rooms of your house so it can efficiently clean your home. Amazon can use all of this to figure out people’s household incomes based on size of home, number of children and what sort of furniture they have. All of this can be used to target customers' relevant products.

This isn’t the first acquisition in the residential domain amazon has made.

Amazon bought the doorbell company Ring in 2018 and the Amazon Alexa is also able to connect to many household devices like thermostats, lights, and microwaves.

The accumulation of all these products will allow Amazon to understand more about our homes than maybe we know ourselves.

Amazon purchasing Roomba may make the robotic vacuum industry more seamless however, it does beg the question how much we’re willing to sacrifice our own personal data.

Written by Nial Dixon