This Is What You Need to Do Before You Get Rid of a Roomba
Updated: Feb. 08, 2023Getting rid of your Roomba isn’t as easy as throwing it in the trash. If you do that, your data is at risk, even more so now that Roomba’s can map your house.
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Using a Robot Vacuum in Your Home
It’s probably not news to any Roomba owner or anyone who uses a smart device but they’re collecting data every time they’re in use. The Roomba collects data about your home so it knows where to go to vacuum up those potato chip crumbs and dust.
Plus, take a look at what to consider before buying a robot vacuum.
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Is Your Data at Risk With a Roomba?
iRobot, the maker of the Roomba assures customers that it does not sell data it collects. Instead the company says the data Roomba collects is improve its cleaning ability and provide customers data about Roomba’s cleaning performance.
iRobot’s Roomba i7+ can create maps of your home and could be used to help connect other smart home devices. iRobot and Google announced in 2018 that they partnered to enhance smart homes.
“Much like assigning smart lights or other smart devices to rooms in the home, the Assistant only learns what names people have given to areas of their homes, so that it can then deploy the iRobot i7+ to that area,” Google said in a statement to The Verge. “We do not receive any information on the layout of the home or where the areas are, respectively.”
The Roomba 900 Series, i Series and s Series, Braava jet m Series robot mops all use mapping data. Users who want to opt out of sending map data to iRobot’s cloud can do so through a switch in the mobile app.
Plus, here’s what you can do with an old computer.
What to Do Before You Get Rid of a Roomba?
Like computers and tablets, your going to want to erase all data from a Roomba before you get rid of it. This is how you can destroy a hard drive.
How Do You Erase Data From Your Roomba?
The best way to erase data from your Roomba before getting rid of it is to do a factory reset. This can be done through the iRobot HOME app.
Up next, this is what you need to know about recycling electronics.
