One of the big things coming out of healthcare reform is a thing called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS) which is a mechanism to reimburse people staying at home for technology...

When I was building robots in the early 1990s, the problems of voice recognition, image understanding, VOIP, even touchscreen technologies – these were robotics problems.

At MIT, in Professor Rodney Brooks’ lab, I was involved in a project, led by Anita Flynn, to build robots using techniques similar to those used in building silicon chips. We got some silicon micro-machined...

Our 2015 financial performance will continue to be driven by our Home Robot business. Home Robot revenue is expected to grow 10% to 12% in 2015 and comprise 90% of total company revenue.

When my daughter was 3, she was eating Cheerios and spilled some on the table. So she swiped them onto the floor. I said, ‘Darcy, what are you doing?’ She said: ‘Don’t worry, Daddy, the...

Building a robot that has legs and walks around is a very expensive proposition. Mother Nature has created many wonderful things, but one thing we do have that nature doesn’t is the wheel, a continuous...

I thought boxes were the best toy. When my parents got a new car, I ran to my mother and said, ‘Did it come in a box?’

Robotic toys can be very interesting, but it is important that the toy not ‘dictate’ how the child should play with it. Rather, it should take its cues from the child and enhance, teach, and...

When we built Roomba, we explicitly designed it to not have a face. We didn’t want to think it was cute; we wanted people to take it seriously, so we gave it more of an...

Did Google need to make robot cars in order to make Streetview work? Absolutely not. It’s the equivalent of saying you need a walking robot in order to push an upright vacuum cleaner. It’s gratuitous...

It’s going to be interesting to see how society deals with artificial intelligence, but it will definitely be cool.

Robotics has been around forever, and it’s been the next big thing forever, and it is so exciting and compelling that it’s easy to get carried away. People almost always do, and that’s one of...

Building robot versions of people is very expensive.

I was focused on building things from an early age. When I was about 3, our toilet broke, and my mother was ready to call the plumber. I told her I would fix it and...

The way that the robotics market is going to grow, at least in the home, is that we’ll have a number of different special purpose robots.

Starting out, iRobot was not an economic rocket ship. It took six and a half years before we had enough money in the bank at the beginning of each month to make payroll. We always...

Hollywood likes to imagine robots as mechanical copies of ourselves – which is a terrible idea.

If you ask the typical two- or three-year-old or a teenager what a robot is, they will think about a humanoid that does my homework for me or walks the dog. When I go and...

At the World Cup, there is a constant risk that you might find a bag or some object that has been left behind, and no one is quite sure what it is. To bring in...

The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to ‘go to the kitchen’ means something – navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are...

I believe one day nano-robots will play an important role in medicine.

In the beginning of Roomba, we all took turns answering the support line. Once, a woman called and explained that her robot had a defective motor. I said, ‘Send it back. We’ll send you a...

I learned to canoe at summer camp and thought I’d pursue Olympic whitewater canoeing. In my senior year of high school, I instead decided to attend M.I.T. I like to say I’ve had only two...

The ideal vacuum cleaner would be one you never see. It needs to not just be a cool gadget, but a product that cleans your floor correctly. I can imagine people having a cupboard full...

I grew up mostly in Schenectady, N.Y. From an early age, building and creating things was a real passion for me.

In the original ‘Star Wars’ movie, there is a small toaster-sized and shaped robot on the Death Star that guides Stormtroopers to where they need to go. I always liked that robot because I could...

It is clear as you look at the team why Data Point Capital has so quickly become one of the premier venture capital firms. I look forward to adding to the firm’s very bright future.

There are so many opportunities to make a bad decision in building a robot company on top of all the normal ways that entrepreneurs screw up that it is incredibly difficult to truly create value...

If you want to make a serious, rugged, reliable robot, you can start with the Create platform and just build stuff on top of it.

In the smart home of the future, there should be a robot designed to talk to you. With enough display technology, connectivity, and voice recognition, this human-interface robot or head-of-household robot will serve as a...

My very clear vision for the ideal Roomba is one you never see and you never touch. Our research priorities are explicitly focused on the Roomba of the future that will deliver on the promise...

We’re going to have robots in the home, but they’re not going to be walking. Legs are complicated, unreliable and costly. Robots are going to look and be designed to meet the function they’re supposed...

In the end, robots do things that people can do. So there is a cost above which you can hire somebody to do it, and that bounds the opportunity.

It’s hard not to love Roomba. Roomba had such an amazing impact on the field. When we launched, we asked people, ‘Is it a robot?’ and got an overwhelming no – ‘robots’ have arms and...

The reason it has taken so long for the robotics industry to move forward is because people keep trying to make something that is cool but difficult to achieve rather than trying to find solutions...

What did everyone think robot vacuuming was going to be? Well, they think Rosie the Robot from ‘The Jetsons,’ a human robot that pushed a vacuum. That was never going to happen.

People are fascinated by robots because they’re machines that can mimic life.

My Roomba’s name is Roswell. There is the moment when you are sitting on the couch and Roomba turns itself on and goes out and starts working. You really appreciate it because it works hard...

We will not have humanoid androids. It’s interesting: when you start trying to make robots look more human, you end up making them look more grotesque. It takes very little to go from super-attractive robot...

You’re not going to talk to your vacuum cleaning robot: in fact, you may never see your vacuum cleaning robot because, ideally, you come home every day and your floors are freshly vacuumed.

The name iRobot comes from ‘Internet-connected robot.’