Amazon’s Smart Home Reach: What Your Roomba Might Be Tracking

Amazon just bought iRobot for $1.7 billion — the company behind the Roomba — and it’s not just about adding another gadget to its lineup. This move shows how deeply Amazon is diving into the everyday spaces of people’s homes. Roomba vacuums now don’t just follow walls or avoid clutter. They map out your living room, kitchen, and hallways in real time, recording room shapes, furniture positions, and even where rugs are placed. That’s a big leap from older models that just bounced around randomly. The promise is clear

The real issue isn’t just that a robot knows where your couch is. It’s that these devices collect continuous, granular information about your home — and how you use it — every time you’re around. That data could be used to guess when you’ll run out of supplies, recommend products you might not need, or even be shared with advertisers or third parties without your say-so. Since Roombas work day and night, they gather data during active hours, building a picture of your routine. And once that data is in the cloud, it’s no longer just yours. Amazon, now in control, stores it and manages it — meaning you lose some control over what happens to it. Even if iRobot used to restrict access, Amazon’s ownership changes everything.

What Your Smart Home Devices Are Really Tracking

• Roombas create detailed maps of your home — room layouts, furniture, rugs — and store them in the cloud. These maps are not just for cleaning; they’re data points that capture your daily environment.
• The data collected is continuous and expansive — it’s not just about where things are, but how they’re arranged and how you move through your space, which can be used for predictions or targeted ads.
• Cloud storage introduces security risks — hackers could access your home layout, and Amazon, as the new owner, now has the power to use, share, or sell that data without clear transparency.

Even if Amazon says it doesn’t sell customer data, the same rules don’t always apply when it comes to smart home devices. Your privacy isn’t just about what you do online — it’s about what’s happening in your home, silently, every day. If you’re using smart devices, check your privacy settings, understand what’s being collected, and think twice before letting them keep running. You don’t have to give up control — just be aware of what’s happening behind the scenes.