# The Home Became a Data Object

*Maps, the Amazon Walk-Away, and Picea’s Residual Ownership of the Category Leader*

**Prepared as a consumer product-assurance analysis**  
Current as of 19 August 2026

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> **Research premise.** The decade’s consumer-robot trust failure is not a string of privacy scandals. It is a three-step: maps and cameras made the home a data object, a Big Tech buyer was waved off, and the category leader still ended up owned by its Chinese OEM.

## Abstract

**Research premise.** Between 2016 and 19 August 2026, the consumer robot that Sense, Move, and Act inside a dwelling accumulated a trust record that regulation treated as three different problems and the market treated as one residual owner. In 2017 the category leader framed home maps as a shareable smart-home input; in 2022 a development-camera leak taught the public that a stranger might see the bathroom even if no one sold the map; in 2023–24 the United Kingdom cleared Amazon’s purchase of iRobot while the European Union and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission made the path politically unwalkable, without a prohibition or a filed complaint. In January 2026 the same company emerged from a pre-packaged Chapter 11 wholly owned by Shenzhen Picea, its contract manufacturer and secured lender, with an “iRobot Safe” U.S. data subsidiary whose practical ring-fence is not established from the emergence exhibit. Parallel records show the same Control Fabric failing in other form factors: Ecovacs camera robots drew the first U.S. industrial-control advisory on a home robot; companion products died at shutdown and again when a rescuer took preorders; home humanoids are already collecting money under no dedicated Consumer Product Safety Commission rule, with a scheduled stranger on a headset as the safety story. The method is source-primary product-assurance analysis, labeled Fact, Inference, Judgment, or Unknown. The finding is that waving off a platform buyer did not preserve an independent Western champion, and that “we do not sell maps” never answered who sees the frame, who keeps the cloud, or who owns the body after insolvency. The limit is collection integrity: several official pages timed out or refused the fetch; those gaps are marked, not filled. Physical-harm and official-recall records of the same decade are sibling papers and are not developed here.

_Keywords: consumer robotics, home mapping, camera annotation, merger control, residual OEM ownership, companion-cloud shutdown, teleoperation, product security passport_

## 1. Introduction: The Apparent Puzzle

A reader who followed Amazon’s proposed purchase of iRobot from the August 2022 agreement to the January 2024 termination can reasonably conclude that Western regulators kept a camera-and-map robot out of a platform that already sees the house. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority cleared the deal. The European Commission opened a Phase II inquiry and issued a Statement of Objections. The Federal Trade Commission later said its probe had focused on Amazon’s ability to favor its own products and on “associated effects on innovation, entry barriers, and consumer privacy.” The parties walked away. Amazon’s own statement was that there was “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” None of those sentences is in dispute.¹

The puzzle is the residual owner. Twenty-four months later the same category leader emerged from a Delaware pre-pack as a private company wholly owned by Shenzhen Picea Robotics and Santrum Hong Kong — the firm that had been its primary contract manufacturer and secured lender. Headquarters stayed in Bedford, Massachusetts. Common stock was cancelled. A new U.S. subsidiary, iRobot Safe Corporation, was announced as the vessel for U.S. consumer data. The physical robot did not change. The trust path did.²

LrrK’s judgment is that the decade’s consumer-robot failure is this three-step, not a highlight reel of five incidents. Maps and cameras first made the home a data object. A Big Tech buyer was then waved off as if that were the control. The category leader still ended up owned by its Chinese OEM. Companion robots died twice — at shutdown, then again if a “savior” took preorders — and home humanoids are already taking money under no dedicated CPSC rule, with a stranger on a headset as the safety story. Those later cases are not a recap. They are the same Control Fabric in other bodies: who sees the frame, who keeps the cloud, who may command Move and Act, and what a Product Security Passport would have to record before any of those answers is allowed to change.

This paper is a product-assurance argument, not a merger case note and not a vulnerability write-up. Facts are taken from named primaries that opened. Inferences and judgments are labeled. “Not established” is not treated as safe. Exploit status, where mentioned, is a high-level label from the public record. No attack procedures are provided. A companion analysis treats the decade’s physical-harm record — robotic mowers, litter boxes, lithium fires. An official-recall addendum treats Health Canada and CPSC actions on docks and packs. Those papers are sibling pointers only.

## 2. The Map Became a Commodity

The decade’s first trust sentence was not a leak. It was a business model. On 24 July 2017, CNBC reported iRobot chief executive Colin Angle as saying the company could reach a deal, in the next couple of years, to sell Roomba maps to Amazon, Apple, or Google. The same week the BBC quoted Angle’s statement that, with the owner’s permission, the maps would “enable the smart home and the devices within it to work better.” Reuters later corrected the interview to “share maps for free with customer consent.” The original Reuters page returned 401 in this collection and is not cited as a live link. TechCrunch, on 28 July, recorded Angle’s damage-control line and iRobot’s subsequent statement that the company “will never sell your data.” BBC’s 1 August update quoted the firm again: “iRobot does not sell customer data.”³

Those sentences can all be true at once. “Sell” and “share with consent” are different legal acts. Neither answers the product-assurance question the 2017 week actually posed: whether a floor-level simultaneous-localization-and-mapping stack had converted the dwelling into a spatial file that a platform, a partner, or a later owner of the company might one day use. Angle told CNBC that “an entire ecosystem of things and services” becomes available “once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared.”⁴

Fact: iRobot denied a plan to sell customer maps, and the Reuters correction is part of the public record. Inference, moderate confidence: the 2017 week is what later made Amazon–iRobot readable as a data-and-marketplace merger rather than a vacuum deal. Judgment: “we do not sell maps” is a commercial representation, not a Control Fabric. A Passport that records only the representation has recorded a press line. What it would have to record is who holds the map, under what consent, for what purpose, for how long, and what happens to that file on a change of corporate control.

The 2017 frame also set a false comfort that later events retired. If the harm is a sale to a named platform, then blocking that sale looks like the remedy. The rest of the decade showed that the map can move, or the company can, without a retail “sale of maps” ever being proven.

## 3. A Stranger Saw the Bathroom

On 19 December 2022, *MIT Technology Review* published the case that taught consumers the difference. The magazine obtained fifteen screenshots posted by Venezuelan Scale AI gig workers in closed Facebook and Discord groups. The images came from development versions of iRobot’s Roomba J7 series, captured between June and November 2020 in the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Spain. One sequence showed a young woman on a toilet. Another showed a boy, face visible, on a hallway floor. iRobot confirmed the images, said the devices had hardware and software modifications “not and never were present on iRobot consumer products for purchase,” and said paid collectors and employees had signed written agreements and that the units carried green “video recording in progress” stickers. About two million images had been shared with Scale; Scale confirmed thirteen of the fifteen as coming from an R&D project. Chief executive Colin Angle said iRobot was terminating the leaking provider. iRobot’s on-record policy did not treat faces, including minors, as sensitive, because the company said it must train human-avoidance.⁵

Do not write the viral version. Retail Roombas did not leak a toilet photograph. The record is development and paid-tester units, and a crowdsourced annotator who posted into a closed group. Whether any retail firmware path ever sent equivalent frames is not established. “Not established” is not a finding that retail units were clean.

The product-assurance object is the chain, not the sticker. A camera on the floor produced frames. The frames left the house. A human in another country saw them, including faces iRobot had declined to classify as sensitive. Justin Brookman, then at Consumer Reports and formerly of the FTC’s technology office, told the magazine it is “not expected that human beings are going to be reviewing the raw footage.” Jessica Vitak of the University of Maryland put the mismatch in one sentence: people treat a vacuum differently from a person walking the house with a camera. The annotator *is* that person.⁶

LrrK’s inference, moderate confidence, is that this case supplied the privacy clause in the FTC’s later Amazon–iRobot sentence. The Commission did not sue and did not publish a complaint. The January 2024 statement is still the only official U.S. antitrust sentence that puts “consumer privacy” on the same line as marketplace foreclosure for this deal. High confidence attaches to the *MIT Technology Review* facts and to iRobot’s on-record responses. Low confidence attaches to retail-unit equivalence. Kestrel’s job, if it is to be more than a brand, is to treat training data as a trust path: who collected, who labeled, who retained, who can leak. Passport’s job is to record who sees the frame, including the face of a child the vendor has declared not sensitive. Lab work that hashes an on-device model while leaving the annotation vendor unexamined has tested the robot and not the chain.

The 2017 maps fight and the 2022 annotator leak are one argument. “We do not sell maps” does not answer “a stranger saw the bathroom.” Consumers learned the difference. The Control Fabric did not.

## 4. The Marketplace-Plus-Data Merger That Did Not Close

Amazon and iRobot announced the acquisition on 4 August 2022. The Competition and Markets Authority, clearing Phase 1 on 16 June 2023, described it as a $1.7 billion purchase. The FTC, after the walk-away, described the terminated agreement as a $1.4 billion merger. Those two official figures are both in the record; this paper does not reconcile them. What the CMA actually found is more important than the headline price. iRobot’s U.K. position in robot vacuums was “modest.” Amazon might have been able to disadvantage rivals on its storefront, but the Authority concluded it would lack the incentive. Robot-vacuum data were “generally not considered to be an important input” to emerging U.K. smart-home platforms. Colin Raftery, the CMA’s senior director of mergers, said the deal would have “no impact on competition in the U.K.” The decision left the transaction under review elsewhere.⁷

The European Commission was notified on 1 June 2023 and opened an in-depth Phase II investigation on 6 July (case M.10920). On 27 November it sent Amazon a Statement of Objections. iRobot’s Form 8-K that day is the primary U.S. record: the SO is a preparatory document, does not prejudge a final decision, and left the Commission until 14 February 2024 to act. Contemporary reporting, which this collection treats as B2 because official Commission HTML did not reliably render, described the objections as foreclosure: delisting rivals, reducing organic and paid visibility, limiting access to widgets and commercially attractive labels, or raising rivals’ advertising costs on Amazon’s marketplace. On 29 January 2024 the parties terminated. Amazon’s David Zapolsky said the acquisition had “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” iRobot’s Colin Angle called the termination disappointing. Amazon paid the agreed termination fee.⁸

The FTC did not sue. Associate Director Nathan Soderstrom’s 31 January 2024 statement is the entire public U.S. enforcement residue: the Commission was “pleased” the parties had abandoned; the probe “focused on Amazon’s ability and incentive to favor its own products and disfavor rivals’, and associated effects on innovation, entry barriers, and consumer privacy”; the investigation had “revealed significant concerns.” Lead staff were in the Northeast Region. That is a press statement, not a complaint, not a consent decree, and not a finding.⁹

Fact: CMA approved; EU did not issue a prohibition; FTC did not sue; the parties abandoned. Inference, high confidence: Amazon–iRobot was treated, in Brussels and Washington, as a marketplace-plus-data merger, not a vacuum deal. Inference, moderate confidence: the 2022 annotator case is why “consumer privacy” appears in Soderstrom’s one sentence. Unknown: what a litigated record would have shown about actual map or camera flows, because no such record was made. Judgment: waving off the buyer is not a Control Fabric. It is a refusal of one acquirer. Campaign’s question — who owns the map — remained open the day the deal died.

Amazon’s termination statement already named the residual risk, whether or not Zapolsky intended it as foresight. Mergers of this kind, he said, help companies “better compete in the global marketplace, particularly against companies, and from countries, that aren’t subject to the same regulatory requirements.” Two years later the residual owner was exactly that class of firm.

## 5. Residual Ownership Walks In

On 14 December 2025, iRobot entered a restructuring support agreement with Shenzhen Picea Robotics Co., Ltd. (formerly Shenzhen 3irobotix) and Santrum Hong Kong, and commenced a pre-packaged Chapter 11 in the District of Delaware. Picea was already the secured lender and primary contract manufacturer. Under the RSA, Picea would take 100 percent of the reorganized equity. The company expected to complete the process by February 2026.¹⁰

It finished faster. An Exhibit 99.1 dated 23 January 2026, filed on the iRobot EDGAR index, is the emergence record this paper uses. Picea acquired 100 percent of the equity interests. iRobot emerged as a privately held company wholly owned by Picea. Common stock was cancelled. Headquarters remained in Bedford, with engineering, product development, marketing, and other corporate functions “anchored in the United States.” Gary Cohen, chief executive, said the company would deliver products, support customers, protect consumer data, and operate with discipline. Picea was described as a global manufacturer of robotic vacuums with research and manufacturing in China and Vietnam.¹¹

The data theater is the new object. The same exhibit announces iRobot Safe Corporation, a separate U.S.-based subsidiary “responsible for the protection of U.S. consumer data,” governed by an independent board of U.S. citizens, with an independent U.S.-based Data Security Officer and an iRobot Safe chief executive, each subject to “strict eligibility requirements.” The structure is “designed to maintain a clear separation between iRobot’s non-U.S. ownership and its U.S. and other global consumer data.” That is the company’s claim. How the ring-fence works in practice — what data Safe Corp actually holds, who can compel a transfer, what a Picea-era privacy notice will say, whether a CFIUS-equivalent review will ever test it — is not established from the exhibit. Unknown is not safe.¹²

LrrK’s assessment, high confidence on the CMA/FTC/Amazon termination and on the 23 January exhibit, is that this is the decade’s market-structure precedent. Blocking a U.S. or E.U. platform buyer did not preserve an independent Western robot-vac champion. The residual owner is the manufacturer who was already in the factory and on the lien. Inference, moderate confidence: home-map and camera politics will now attach to a PRC OEM owner whether or not any byte actually moves. Watch’s first job on this file is Picea-era privacy notices and any Safe Corp filing that is more than a label. A Passport that records “U.S. HQ, U.S. data sub” without recording control, compulsion, and telemetry destinations has recorded the press release.

The first privacy complaint or CFIUS-equivalent look at Picea-era telemetry would test whether Safe Corp is a control or a nameplate. Until that test, the three-step is complete. The home is a data object. The Big Tech buyer was waved off. The category leader is owned by its Chinese OEM.

## 6. The Camera Robot as a Covert Camera

The same decade produced the best-documented case of a home robot as a covert camera, and it was not iRobot. On 9 August 2024, TechCrunch reported that Dennis Giese and Braelynn Luedtke would show, at DEF CON 32, that Ecovacs home robots could be abused to spy on owners. Devices named in that piece included Deebot 900, N8/T8, N9/T9, N10/T10, X1, T20, and X2 families, the Goat G1 mower, and Airbot Z1, AVA, and ANDY. The researchers described Bluetooth takeover, remote camera and microphone access, leftover cloud data and authentication tokens after account deletion, and — on the models they examined — no trustworthy hardware indicator that the camera was on. An Ecovacs spokesperson told TechCrunch users “do not need to worry excessively.”¹³

Two weeks later the vendor reversed. Martin Ma, director of Ecovacs’ security committee, told TechCrunch the December 2023 researcher emails had been “inadvertently overlooked,” that the DEF CON talk had “captured [his] attention,” and that the company would fix issues on the Goat G1, the X1, and the app. The November 2024 vendor advisory URL cited in contemporaneous collection timed out in this pass and is not treated as a live primary.¹⁴

CISA ICSA-25-135-19 is the official residue. Initial publication was 15 May 2025; Update A, 10 July 2025, stated that mitigation was available for all listed devices. The opened advisory names hard-coded cryptographic keys (CVE-2025-30198, CVE-2025-30200) and unsigned over-the-air updates to the base station (CVE-2025-30199, CVSS v4 8.6). Affected families include X1, T10, T20, and T30 series below listed versions. Researchers named are Giese, Luedtke, and Chris Anderson. CISA’s impact sentence is that successful exploitation “could allow an attacker to send malicious updates to the devices or execute code.” “No known public exploitation specifically targeting these vulnerabilities has been reported to CISA at this time.” This paper states impact only. It does not reproduce exploit steps.¹⁵

Fact: this is the first U.S. industrial-control advisory this collection treats as attached to a mass-market home robot. Inference, moderate confidence: serial-derived keys and unsigned dock OTA will recur in other white-label docks. Unknown: patch uptake in the installed base. Judgment: a market-leading camera robot with no trustworthy camera-on indicator and leftover cloud tokens after account deletion is a covert-camera problem whether or not anyone “sold the footage.” The vendor sequence — deny, press, “we overlooked the email,” advisory, CISA — is itself a Control Fabric finding. Watch should hold ICSA-25-135-19 for known-exploited status. Lab should treat leftover-token and indicator integrity as first-class tests, not as footnotes to a CVE score. A Campaign that asks only whether Ecovacs “sends footage to China” has asked the viral question. The record does not establish that claim. The record establishes that the camera can be on without a trustworthy tell, and that the dock can take an unsigned update.

## 7. Companions Die Twice

Hardware can survive. The robot-as-companion cannot. That is the second trust failure, and it is a Control Fabric failure: the cloud is the personality, and the personality is rented.

Jibo’s servers limited function around 4 March 2019, after the intellectual property had been sold to SQN Venture Partners. The unit delivered its own eulogy and danced. No attorney-general action or class judgment was found in this collection.¹⁶

Anki closed in April 2019. Vector had a notable cloud component. In December 2019 Digital Dream Labs took intellectual property and servers. Chief executive Jacob Hanchar told owners, in a post quoted by The Verge on 5 January 2020, that “if you were concerned about Vector ‘dying’ one day, you no longer have to worry.” Original Vectors were not mass-bricked in April 2019. That viral claim is killed.¹⁷

The second death is the rescuer’s preorder. Pennsylvania’s attorney general filed a civil action against Digital Dream Labs and Hanchar in Allegheny County, around 18 September 2024 (GD-24-010283), alleging that most of about 14,000 prepaid orders for Vector 2.0, Cozmo 2.0, and Butter, placed between November 2020 and January 2024, were unfulfilled; prices of $147 to $655; more than $4 million in sales; Mail Order Rule and Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. A live attorneygeneral.gov release was not found in this collection. CBS Pittsburgh reported the filing on 18 September 2024; that page did not render here, so the citation is to the outlet and date, not to a live URL. No judgment was found through cutoff. The case, as pleaded in secondary accounts, is non-delivery, not bricking. A July 2026 fan-blog claim of a Pittsburgh receiver over DDL assets is C3 and is not treated as Fact.¹⁸

Moxie is the children’s pair. Embodied announced the week of 9 December 2024 that a critical funding round had collapsed and that Moxie, a cloud-dependent companion sold for about $799, would lose core function when services ceased — “likely… within days,” with no guarantee. The company said it could not offer refunds except a non-guarantee that, if assets were sold, it would try to prioritize buyers from the last thirty days. That announcement landed two weeks after an FTC staff paper, dated 26 November 2024, found that nearly 89 percent of 184 surveyed smart-product web pages failed to disclose how long software updates would last, and warned that such omissions may violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act or Section 5 of the FTC Act. No Moxie case was found through cutoff. The legal-theory pair — brick without disclosed support duration, against a staff paper that had just named the omission — is the product-assurance object.¹⁹

Amazon’s Astro for Business is the remediation baseline, and it is easy to misread. On 3 July 2024 Amazon said it would wind the business SKU down to focus on home robotics. Units would stop functioning on 25 September 2024. The customer email, published by The Verge, promised a full hardware refund, a $300 credit, unused-subscription refunds, and an invite to the home Day 1 program. Home Astro was not this brick. Home conversion was refused; Amazon offered a recycling label instead.²⁰

Neato is the “cybersecurity compliance” exhibit. Vorwerk shut the company in 2023 and, on the vendor’s later account, promised five years of cloud service. On 6 October 2025 a Neato support notice said the cloud was “phasing out now” because “cybersecurity standards, compliance obligations, and regulatory frameworks have advanced,” and “updating this environment would not be technically meaningful.” The button still starts a full-house run. Warranty remains. The five-year promise broke at about year two.²¹

Sony’s aibo ERS-1000 is the rented-personality control that has not yet been a global shutdown. A Sony FAQ last modified 17 September 2021 states that non-renewal stops growth, erases cloud memories and photos, kills the My aibo app and updates, and that a later repair factory-resets the body. No global ERS-1000 shutdown was found through cutoff.²²

Fact: no court in this collection has held a maker liable for bricking a companion. The Pennsylvania case is non-delivery. Inference, moderate confidence: the next prepaid humanoid drop will be argued against Digital Dream Labs and against Amazon’s Astro refund. Judgment: the second harm is the rescuer who sells the next body as a prepaid future, or the parent company that uses “cybersecurity compliance” to pull a working cloud. Passport must record support duration and prepaid-SKU status before money moves. Campaign must treat brick-and-preorder as one class. Watch holds GD-24-010283 and the first FTC or state-AG support-duration complaint. Moxie is the exhibit. Neato is the “we had to, for security” exhibit. Amazon’s refund is the floor.

## 8. Money Before the Home Rule

On 28 October 2025, from Palo Alto, 1X announced NEO as “the world’s first consumer-ready humanoid.” The opened product page states 66 pounds, lift over 150 pounds, carry 55 pounds, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 5G, U.S. deliveries in 2026 and other markets in 2027, Early Access at $20,000 or $499 a month. Soft tendon drive, a soft lattice body, and 22-decibel operation are the vendor safety story. For chores NEO does not yet know, owners “can schedule a 1X Expert to guide it.” No UL or CPSC certificate is cited on the opened page.²³

Secondary reporting, which this paper treats as a live risk class and not as a filed injury, fills in the Expert. Engadget, 29 October 2025, quoting a Wall Street Journal interview with chief executive Bernt Børnich, reported that early buyers must agree a human operator will see inside the house through the robot’s camera; that much of the early work will be teleoperated; that sessions are scheduled in an app; that people can be blurred and rooms marked no-go; and that an operator cannot take control without owner approval. Børnich’s line, as quoted: “If we don’t have your data, we can’t make the product better.” The 1X Expert is therefore a stranger-in-the-house fact *if the secondary description holds*, not a finding that anyone has been hurt. Whether 2026 U.S. deliveries were, by mid-2026, a confirmed unsupervised fleet remains unknown. Planned is not deployed.²⁴

Figure is not a consumer SKU. Figure 03, introduced 9 October 2025, is marketed with soft goods, wireless charging, UN38.3 battery language, and a home-and-Helix story. There is no price and no pre-order on the opened page. *Gruendel v. Figure*, N.D. Cal. 5:25-cv-10094, filed 21 November 2025, is an employment case, not a consumer-injury case. Robert Gruendel, former head of product safety, terminated 2 September 2025, alleges robots “powerful enough to fracture a human skull” and a quarter-inch gash in a steel refrigerator, and sues under California Labor Code 1102.5 and 98.6. Those are allegations. They are unadjudicated. This paper does not convert a complaint into a finding. What the docket establishes is that the safety file for a would-be home humanoid is, as of cutoff, an employment dispute.²⁵

Consumer quadrupeds already sit in a national vulnerability catalog and in a national-security communications regime. NVD published CVE-2025-35027 on 26 September 2025 against Unitree Go2, G1, H1, and B2 firmware ceilings: command injection via the Bluetooth Low Energy Wi-Fi configuration path, impact to root. This paper states that impact only. On 28 July 2026, FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau DA 26-786 added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to the Covered List unless Department of War Conditional Approval is granted. Official FCC HTML did not render in this collection. Law-firm explainers (Baker McKenzie, August 2026) are the B2 record used here. The listing is category-wide — mobile ground robots including humanoids and quadrupeds, above 4.4 pounds, with a sensor, at least 200 kbps connectivity, and autonomy or remote command — not “Unitree banned.” Models already authorized remain importable. The Covered List is a comms-and-origin screen, not a CPSC home-safety rule.²⁶

No dedicated CPSC home-humanoid rule was identified as of 19 August 2026. ISO 13482 and ISO 10218 were written for other machines. Voluntary UL 3300 (SCIEE robots) exists; it is not a substitute for a dedicated home-humanoid mandate, and 1X’s opened page does not cite it. No Figure, 1X, or Optimus consumer-injury case was found. Inference, moderate confidence: the first real home-humanoid incident will be argued as a teleop-consent and sensor-gap case, not as “the robot woke up.” Judgment: money is being collected for unsupervised-looking home bodies while the actual control may be a remote expert and the actual safety file may be an employment complaint. Kestrel’s object is the hidden operator. Sense / Move / Act on a 30-kilogram biped that can carry a pan past a toddler is not a vacuum problem. Passport must record teleop consent, operator identity and location, indicator integrity, and the absence of a dedicated home rule — not “soft tendon, therefore safe.”

## 9. What a Control-Fabric Passport Would Have to Record

The decade produced five trust objects that a score, a merger clearance, or a privacy policy cannot substitute for. A Product Security Passport is the authoritative, append-only assurance record for a specific thing. The thing, for this class, is not the SKU name. It is the system that Sense, Move, and Act inside someone else’s house.

### Table 1. Trust objects and the Passport fields they require

| Trust object | What the public record established | What a Passport must record |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Home map | 2017 commodity frame; CMA treated U.K. robot-vac data as generally not an important smart-home input | Who holds the map; consent; purpose; retention; transfer on change of control |
| Training frame | 2020 J7 development images; Scale annotators; faces, including minors, not treated as sensitive | Who sees the frame; annotator chain; faces-and-minors policy; retail-versus-development scope |
| Camera and dock | Ecovacs DEF CON 32 → ICSA-25-135-19; leftover tokens; unsigned dock OTA | Indicator integrity; post-deletion tokens; signed OTA; patch uptake |
| Companion cloud | Jibo, Moxie, Neato, Astro for Business, DDL preorders | Support-duration disclosure; brick/refund rule; prepaid-SKU status |
| Home-humanoid control | 1X Expert as scheduled teleop; Gruendel allegations unadjudicated; no dedicated CPSC rule | Teleop consent and indicator; operator identity; standard or rule actually cited; residual-owner path |

A two-layer model follows the same logic LrrK has used on capability screens in other filings. The first layer is categorical: who may own a map-and-camera robot, who may import a foreign advanced robot, who may take a preorder. CMA clearance, an EU Statement of Objections, an FTC walk-away sentence, an FCC Covered List, and a Chapter 11 emergence are all first-layer events. They do not answer whether a particular Roomba, Deebot, Vector, Moxie, or NEO is trustworthy in a particular house. The second layer is evidentiary. It is the Passport: provenance, firmware lineage, data destinations, annotation vendors, cloud-support end date, teleop conditions, and a signed statement of what happens to Sense data and to Act authority when the vendor is sold, insolvent, or acquired by its OEM.

Safe Corp is the test of whether the industry understood that second layer. If the subsidiary holds the data under enforceable U.S. control, with a Data Security Officer who can refuse a parent instruction, it is a control. If it is a press-release box on an emergence exhibit, it is a label. That distinction is Unknown as of cutoff. Watch should treat the first Picea-era privacy notice, the first Safe Corp filing, and the first consumer complaint as the experiment.

The same Passport would have retired the decade’s false comforts. “We do not sell maps” does not record who saw the bathroom. “The CMA cleared it” does not record who owns iRobot. “Users need not worry excessively” does not record a camera-on indicator. “A savior took the servers” does not record whether the next body will ship. “Soft tendon drive” does not record who is on the headset. Each sentence is a first-layer story. None is a condition of command.

## 10. Conclusion

The decade’s consumer-robot trust failure is a three-step. Maps and cameras made the home a data object. A Big Tech buyer was waved off. The category leader still ended up owned by its Chinese OEM. Companion robots died twice — at shutdown, then again if a savior took preorders. Home humanoids are already taking money under no dedicated CPSC rule, with a stranger on a headset as the safety story.

Those are not five signals with academic headers. They are one Control Fabric. Sense produced a map and a frame. The frame left the house. The company that made the map was refused to a platform and then conveyed to its manufacturer. The cloud that made a companion a companion was pulled, sometimes with a refund and sometimes with a petition. The next body is collecting five-figure deposits while the safety file is either a scheduled teleoperator or an unadjudicated complaint.

LrrK’s judgment, high confidence on the merger-and-emergence record and on the opened camera, companion, and humanoid primaries, is that residual OEM ownership is now the category’s default, and that “iRobot Safe” is the first post-bankruptcy data-governance theater in this class. Moderate confidence attaches to the inference that home-map politics will follow Picea whether or not data moves, and that the first home-humanoid harm will be argued as teleop and sensors rather than as awakening. Low confidence, which is to say Unknown, attaches to Safe Corp’s effectiveness, to Ecovacs patch uptake, to a DDL judgment or receiver, to 2026 NEO delivery status, and to Gruendel’s merits.

The durable object is not a banned buyer. It is a Passport that records who owns the map, who sees the frame, who keeps the cloud, and who may command the body — and that treats a change in any of those answers as a new product. Until that record exists, waving off Amazon and announcing a U.S. data subsidiary will keep being mistaken for control.

Endnotes

1. Competition and Markets Authority, “Amazon’s purchase of Roomba maker cleared by CMA,” 16 June 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/amazon-s-purchase-of-roomba-maker-cleared-by-cma; Amazon, “Amazon and iRobot Agree to Terminate Pending Acquisition,” 29 January 2024. https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/1/amazon-and-irobot-agree-to-terminate-pending-acquisition; Federal Trade Commission, “Statement Regarding the Termination of Amazon’s Proposed Acquisition of iRobot,” 31 January 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/statement-regarding-termination-amazons-proposed-acquisition-irobot

2. iRobot Corporation, Exhibit 99.1, “iRobot Completes Court-Supervised Transaction with Picea,” 23 January 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159167/000115916726000006/exhibit991.htm

3. CNBC, “Roomba maker iRobot may start selling the maps it makes of your home,” 24 July 2017. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/roomba-maker-irobot-may-start-selling-the-maps-it-makes-of-your-home.html; BBC News, “Robot vacuum company mulls selling maps of homes,” 24 July 2017, updated 1 August 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40714398; TechCrunch, “iRobot’s CEO says the company never planned to sell Roomba home mapping data,” 28 July 2017. https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/28/irobots-ceo-says-the-company-never-planned-to-sell-roomba-home-mapping-data/

4. CNBC, 24 July 2017, cited above.

5. Eileen Guo, “A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?,” *MIT Technology Review*, 19 December 2022. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/

6. Ibid.

7. Competition and Markets Authority, 16 June 2023, cited above.

8. iRobot Corporation, Form 8-K, 27 November 2023. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159167/000119312523283345/d907174d8k.htm; TechCrunch, “Amazon’s iRobot purchase sucks up formal competition concerns in EU,” 27 November 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/eu-amazon-irobot-statement-of-objections/; Amazon, 29 January 2024, cited above. A 29 January 2024 European Commission / Vestager statement was identified but returned 502 in this collection and is cited by outlet and date only.

9. Federal Trade Commission, 31 January 2024, cited above.

10. iRobot Corporation, Form 8-K describing the 14 December 2025 restructuring support agreement, SEC File Number 001-36414. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159167/000119312525318337/d97115d8k.htm

11. iRobot Corporation, Exhibit 99.1, 23 January 2026, cited above.

12. Ibid.

13. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, “Ecovacs home robots can be hacked to spy on their owners, researchers say,” TechCrunch, 9 August 2024. https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/09/ecovacs-home-robots-can-be-hacked-to-spy-on-their-owners-researchers-say/

14. Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, “Ecovacs says it will fix bugs that can be abused to spy on robot owners,” TechCrunch, 22 August 2024. https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/22/ecovacs-says-it-will-fix-bugs-that-can-be-abused-to-spy-on-robot-owners/

15. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, “ECOVACS DEEBOT Vacuum and Base Station (Update A),” ICSA-25-135-19, 15 May 2025, updated 10 July 2025. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-25-135-19

16. Ashley Carman, “Dying social robot Jibo goes out with a song and a dance,” The Verge, 4 March 2019. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/3/4/18250104/jibo-social-robot-server-shutdown-offline-dead

17. James Vincent, “Anki’s toy robots are being saved from a digital death,” The Verge, 5 January 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/5/21050378/anki-vector-saved-shutdown-servers-assets-bought

18. CBS Pittsburgh, “Pa. Attorney General files lawsuit against Pittsburgh-area robotics toy company,” 18 September 2024 (page returned 406 in this collection; cited by outlet and date). Docket reference GD-24-010283, Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, as reported.

19. Wes Davis, “AI robot companions for kids go dark as company shutters,” The Verge, 9 December 2024. https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/9/24317477/ai-robot-companions-for-kids-go-dark-as-company-shutters; Scharon Harding, “Startup will brick $800 emotional support robot for kids without refunds,” Ars Technica, December 2024. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/startup-will-brick-800-emotional-support-robot-for-kids-without-refunds/; Federal Trade Commission, “Smart Products Surveyed Fail to Provide Consumers with Information on How Long Companies will Provide Software Updates,” 26 November 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/11/smart-products-surveyed-fail-provide-consumers-information-how-long-companies-will-provide-software

20. Sean Hollister, “Amazon is bricking its Astro business robots less than a year after launch,” The Verge, 3 July 2024. https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/3/24190410/amazon-astro-business-robot-discontinued-refunds. A contemporaneous Reuters report of the same day returned 401 in this collection and is cited by outlet and date only.

21. Neato Robotics / Vorwerk, “Announcement - 6th Oct 2025,” 6 October 2025. https://support.neatorobotics.com/support/solutions/articles/204000073686-announcement-6th-oct-2025

22. Sony, “What happens if I don’t renew the aibo AI Cloud Plan?,” last modified 17 September 2021. https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00249669

23. 1X, “NEO Home Robot | Order Today,” 28 October 2025. https://www.1x.tech/discover/neo-home-robot

24. Mariella Moon, “1X Neo is a $20,000 home robot that will learn chores via teleoperation,” Engadget, 29 October 2025. https://www.engadget.com/ai/1x-neo-is-a-20000-home-robot-that-will-learn-chores-via-teleoperation-040252200.html

25. Figure, “Introducing Figure 03,” 9 October 2025. https://www.figure.ai/news/introducing-figure-03; *Gruendel v. Figure AI*, No. 5:25-cv-10094 (N.D. Cal. filed 21 November 2025). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.460223/gov.uscourts.cand.460223.1.0.pdf

26. National Vulnerability Database, CVE-2025-35027, published 26 September 2025. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-35027; Baker McKenzie, “United States: FCC Adds Inverters and Robotics to Covered List,” August 2026. https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2026/08/united-states-fcc-adds-inverters-and-robotics-to-covered-list. The official FCC HTML for DA 26-786 did not render in this collection.

Selected Bibliography

Amazon. “Amazon and iRobot Agree to Terminate Pending Acquisition.” 29 January 2024. https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/1/amazon-and-irobot-agree-to-terminate-pending-acquisition

Competition and Markets Authority. “Amazon’s purchase of Roomba maker cleared by CMA.” 16 June 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/amazon-s-purchase-of-roomba-maker-cleared-by-cma

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “ECOVACS DEEBOT Vacuum and Base Station (Update A).” ICSA-25-135-19. 15 May 2025, updated 10 July 2025. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-25-135-19

Federal Trade Commission. “Statement Regarding the Termination of Amazon’s Proposed Acquisition of iRobot.” 31 January 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/statement-regarding-termination-amazons-proposed-acquisition-irobot

Federal Trade Commission. “Smart Products Surveyed Fail to Provide Consumers with Information on How Long Companies will Provide Software Updates.” 26 November 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/11/smart-products-surveyed-fail-provide-consumers-information-how-long-companies-will-provide-software

Guo, Eileen. “A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?” *MIT Technology Review*. 19 December 2022. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/

iRobot Corporation. Exhibit 99.1, “iRobot Completes Court-Supervised Transaction with Picea.” 23 January 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159167/000115916726000006/exhibit991.htm

iRobot Corporation. Form 8-K. 27 November 2023. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159167/000119312523283345/d907174d8k.htm

1X. “NEO Home Robot | Order Today.” 28 October 2025. https://www.1x.tech/discover/neo-home-robot

Neato Robotics. “Announcement - 6th Oct 2025.” 6 October 2025. https://support.neatorobotics.com/support/solutions/articles/204000073686-announcement-6th-oct-2025

Sony. “What happens if I don’t renew the aibo AI Cloud Plan?” 17 September 2021. https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00249669

Source note. This paper distinguishes CMA clearance, an EU Statement of Objections, and an FTC walk-away statement from a prohibition or a filed complaint; development J7 annotation images from a retail toilet-photo leak; Digital Dream Labs non-delivery allegations from a bricking judgment; Astro for Business from home Astro; 1X NEO teleoperation as a live risk class from a filed consumer injury; and *Gruendel v. Figure* as unadjudicated allegations. It does not reprint the decade’s physical-harm or official-recall record except as sibling pointers. Official EC press HTML, the official FCC DA 26-786 HTML, Reuters 2017 and Reuters Astro pages, CBS Pittsburgh’s DDL page, and the Ecovacs November 2024 advisory timed out, 401’d, 406’d, or 502’d in this collection and are marked as such. The analysis is current as of 19 August 2026 and should be revalidated against subsequent Safe Corp filings, ICSA-25-135-19 updates, GD-24-010283, NEO delivery evidence, Gruendel adjudication, and FCC Conditional Approval practice.