Amazon: eero & iRobot — privacy/security concerns?

I just listened to the recent gift guide episode that will surely cost me some money!

I think it was interesting hearing the conversation about iRobot and eero. Specifically, that Amazon purchasing iRobot makes people want to look elsewhere, while the same people are more ok with Amazon owning eero. Maybe I misheard/misinterpreted Stephen, but he seemed to indicate he would go with a different robot vacuum if he could do it again, but still happily pushes his internet through an Amazon-owned device (again, I may have misheard…it was an early morning drive to work and I hadn’t had my coffee yet).

With the acknowledgement I may have misunderstood our hosts, it got me wondering…

How many folks have moved away from those two companies because Amazon bought them?

I almost think I’m in the minority on generally not worrying about it too much and just hoping my data stays protected. But in my work life, we often say “hope is not a COA (course of action)”. So am I being ignorant/head in the sand by not worrying about the fact Amazon might have pictures of the dog toys on the floor of my house? Should I care more? I host my email with Google Workspace because it just works the best for me. Should I not trust these companies and their data protection?

Might be hard to answer, but curious thoughts.

I’m a pretty idealistic person, but I’d like to think I know when to trade for something better than ideals. I used to use Linux as my main OS and feel all smug about avoiding big tech, and then I realized that I was going to miss out on all the cool tech that comes out in the next ten years because it wouldn’t work with Linux. I bought an iPad Pro and never looked back.

So I guess, what’s it worth for Amazon to not have the layout of your house, and how much do you hate vacuuming?

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I’ve been buying from Amazon for 16 years so they already know everything about me. I didn’t think twice about buying a new eero earlier this year.

And I’m also a Google Workspace/Gmail user, and don’t worry about using them either.

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Our Roomba stores images of “landmarks” in our house so it can determine where it is when we set it down in some random part of the house. What comprises these landmarks isn’t published but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to surmise how this could be abused. But we hate vacuuming so…

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I don’t have a Robot, but do have an Eero setup (3 units)

The Eero’s are excellent and if Amazon hadn’t bought the company, I’d have had no hesitation in buying new units when I need to. Some of their moves worry me though, e.g. when they suddenly decided to implement their own network in the US which meant that Neighbouring Amazon devices could use your bandwidth if their own Wifi was unavailable on an opt out basis. Technically, fantastic. Segregated, undoubtedly. Moral, No. I know it uses limited bandwidth blah, blah, blah but it feels wrong to opt people in, in many cases without their knowledge or permission.

This hasn’t come to the UK yet, but I won’t buy Eero next time. I’ll look around and buy something more privacy focused. APPLE, GET BACK IN THE WIFI ROUTER GAME PLEASE.

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I know this won’t go anywhere. Just wanted to say how bummed I still am about there being no updated Airport Extreme routers or Time Capsules from Apple!

My 2018 Time Capsule recently could not complete a Time Machine backup a couple of times so I moved to making wireless Time Machine backups for my M1 MacBook Air to a 2014 Mac mini with a 2TB spinning drive hanging from it. Works pretty well (so far).

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I don’t see this happening when you can buy an eero Pro 6 router for less money than Apple’s keyboard for the 10th gen iPad. IMO, the router market won’t support the high margins that Apple charges.

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While I buy on Amazon, and sometimes search with Google, I try to keep both companies (and other similar data kraken) out of other areas of my live, where there are easy other options.
It often is not the singular data that is valuable for those companies, but the possibility to connect those single point datas with other data from different sources, to get a “bigger picture” and to get “valuable conclusions” out of this “Big Data”.

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Yah, I’m not sure I mind them knowing the floorplan of my house — I really hate vacuuming. lol

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I also wish they had a router, still. But I agree with folks who say it’s probably not their market. I’m not sure the Apple premium costs would be justified in a router. They are barely justified in the Apple TV, but at least you have a slick device that works well and is noticeable nice to use (UI) on a daily basis.

That’s where I disagree. I had the AirPort Extreme and an AirPort Express previously. Spendy? Yup. Reliable? Rock solid. I’d have paid the same again to replace them with something more modern.

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The thing is, they’re already doing work with device-to-device communication for all their other stuff. They know how wi-fi works. A mesh network that was super-easy and super-reliable and privacy-focused could probably justify the sorts of price premiums Apple would charge.

I think the issue is that they’d be entering a very crowded market with established players, and they’d have to find some differentiator that would create a large enough market segment for development to be viable. That’s what’s missing, IMHO. Apple could do as good of a job as Eero, and get their desired margins on a per-product basis - but they don’t tend to enter markets where they’re just an “also ran”.

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No, but they do when they can add value and/or provide a better experience.

integrating routers with Home(kit] and Matter while providing other benefits for Apple device users, on top of privacy would persuade a significant number of existing customers to purchase. Selling many millions a year would generate more money and diversify them again declining iphone revenues

Personally I’m much happier with my Synology router than I ever was with an Apple router. It has a real firewall, for one thing.

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Amazon sidewalk is an Alexa/Echo feature. To this day there has been no mention of Eero being a part of it. It’s closer to being like the find my network vs public Wi-Fi hotspots.

All I’ll say to that is “Yet”

These things are just another way to spy on you.

Meh. While the discussion in the article is interesting and important, the click-baity headline is disappointing, considering:

iRobot—the world’s largest vendor of robotic vacuums, which Amazon recently acquired for $1.7 billion in a pending deal—confirmed that these images were captured by its Roombas in 2020. All of them came from “special development robots with hardware and software modifications that are not and never were present on iRobot consumer products for purchase,” the company said in a statement. They were given to “paid collectors and employees” who signed written agreements acknowledging that they were sending data streams, including video, back to the company for training purposes. According to iRobot, the devices were labeled with a bright green sticker that read “video recording in progress,” and it was up to those paid data collectors to “remove anything they deem sensitive from any space the robot operates in, including children.”

I think everyone can and should assess for themselves the risks. And if things change, I reserve the right to change my mind. But for now, I appreciate the help picking up the dog fur around the house.

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