--- title: "Report: Amazon Bought Roomba to Better Creep on Your Home" description: "Jeff Bezos and Amazon just purchased Roomba creator iRobot for $1.7 billion. Why? Amazon probably wants to map your home." date: "2022-08-10" modified: "2022-08-10" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-roomba-creep-on-home" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "Amazon" - "data" - "smart homes" - "the digest" --- # Report: Amazon Bought Roomba to Better Creep on Your Home ![Jeff Bezos and Amazon just purchased Roomba creator iRobot for $1.7 billion. Why? Amazon probably wants to map your home.]() *\Image: Amazon/Futurism\* ## Double Agent The Roombas have turned! After Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot, the beloved automated vacuums now belong to Jeff Bezos, who probably wasn't being motivated by a passion for clean floors. Rather, purchasing Roomba offers Amazon a very different opportunity: getting a detailed map of your home, [*Bloomberg* reports](). All of Amazon's pre-existing wealth of smart home devices, though convenient, have the capacity to relay information about users back to Amazon — which can tell *a lot* about a household when pieced together. And now, having acquired data-laden Roombas — advanced versions of which are equipped with mapping technologies and cameras — Amazon will be able to get an even more in-depth picture of households everywhere. "You can learn the behaviors of a household based on their patterns," Brad Russell, who tracks smart home products for researcher Parks Associates Inc, told *Bloomberg*. "One of the most foundational things is occupancy. There's a lot they could do with that." ## Expert Outrage As [*Insider* reports](), data-privacy and antitrust experts were quick to condemn the acquisition. Ron Knox, a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, called the acquisition "the most dangerous, threatening acquisition in the company's history," [in a series of tweets](). "Amazon's interest in buying a popular product like Roomba is obvious," [Knox continued](). "But with its acquisition of iRobot, Amazon would get so much more: A rival product, a vast dataset, and a new way into people's homes and lives." And that's just it. iRobot isn't a startup; it's a leader in its market, and Roombas are already endearingly scooting through millions of homes as we speak. The ecommerce giant has purchased a significant market share — not to mention a whole new set of wildly revealing data. "Amazon wants to have its hands everywhere," Evan Greer, the director of the nonprofit digital-rights-advocacy organization Fight for the Future, [told Wired](), "and acquiring a company that's essentially built on mapping the inside of people's homes seems like a natural extension of the surveillance reach that Amazon already has." **READ MORE:** *[Amazon’s Roomba Deal Is Really About Mapping Your Home]()* \[*Bloomberg*\] **More on data use:** [*Facebook Admits It Doesn't Know What It Does With Your Private Data*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()