When the cloud goes away

On 14 December 2025, iRobot, the maker of the Roomba, said it had voluntarily started a pre-packaged Chapter 11 process in the US District of Delaware, under an agreement for Picea, its secured lender and primary contract manufacturer, to acquire the company.¹ It said there was no anticipated disruption to its app functionality.¹ On 23 January 2026 it announced that the deal was complete and that it was now a privately held company wholly owned by Picea.²

The point is what owners had to rely on: a statement of expectations, not a commitment. For the Roomba Plus 515 Combo we scored, iRobot’s own EU Data Act statement says that without an account the robot can only clean, return to its base and spot-clean from its buttons. Its Spanish terms of service let iRobot stop offering parts of its services, and it has published no commitment that robots keep working if its cloud shuts down (details and sources).

iRobot isn’t unusual here. None of the 20 robots we scored comes with a published end-of-life commitment, our criterion I4.

Our criterion I1 asks what a robot does with no account and no internet. Across the 20 robots:

• Three work fully offline, with no account at all: Bosch Indego S+ 500, HOBOT HOBOT-2S and Maytronics Dolphin S2000.
• Two score “core job offline”: Ecovacs WINBOT W2S OMNI and Aiper Scuba X1. Aiper doesn’t say whether setup or schedules need an account.
• Eight work only partly offline. Most can start a clean from a button, but the maker doesn’t confirm that schedules run without its servers, and maps and zones need the app.
• Three need the maker’s cloud to do their main job, according to the makers’ own documents: Husqvarna Automower 405VE NERA, Gardena SILENO smart sense 600 m² and Mammotion LUBA mini 2 AWD 1000. This is our red flag G1.
• For four, the maker doesn’t say: Worx Landroid Vision Cloud 800 m², Cecotec Conga X100, eufy Omni C28 and Lefant M3 Max.

Wire-free mowers find their position with RTK, using correction data that most makers stream over Wi-Fi or mobile data. Husqvarna Automower 405VE NERA, Gardena SILENO smart sense 600 m² and Mammotion LUBA mini 2 AWD 1000 need that data to navigate. A boundary-wire mower such as the Bosch Indego S+ 500 works entirely on its own. More in the lawn mower guide.

A robot you can control over your own home network keeps more of its usefulness if the maker’s cloud goes. Our criterion I2 gives full points for Matter certification or an official, documented local API. Four of the 20 qualify, all robot vacuums with Matter certification: Dreame L50 Ultra AE, Roborock Saros 20, SwitchBot Robot Vacuum K11+ and Narwal Flow (Basic Dock). None of the lawn mowers, pool or window robots has Matter or an official local API.

Local control is not a guarantee either. As our assessment of the Roborock Saros 20 notes, the partial local control Matter offers is not a commitment that the robot keeps working.

A subscription is another service that can change or end. Three of the 20 robots advertise features that need a paid plan, all of them lawn mowers with mobile connectivity: Worx Landroid Vision Cloud 800 m², Mammotion LUBA mini 2 AWD 1000 and Segway Navimow i205 AWD. In each case the positioning or core mowing itself stays free; it is extras such as 4G remote control or GPS tracking that are paid after a free period. Running costs.