GoKawiilis a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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No other gadget knows as much about your home as a robot vacuum. They map your space, learn your routines, and many now carry a camera and microphone into every room in your house. As AI gives them a better understanding of what they see, the privacy and security risks these autonomous robots pose are only growing.
That’s why greater scrutiny makes sense, but the ban on foreign-made mobile robots issued by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week — implemented to address “unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons” — doesn’t actually judge products by how secure they are, just where they’re built. It effectively means no new robot vacuums from major companies can enter the US market unless they are built here. And spoiler alert: none are.
This ban means Americans will see fewer new models, slower innovation, and more expensive robot vacuums.
Cybersecurity and manufacturing are not the same thing. If the goal is safer robot vacuums (and robot lawnmowers, companion bots, humanoids, and all the other robots this ban sweeps up), this policy misses the mark. A meaningful security standard for robots would require encrypted map storage, security audits, vulnerability disclosures, and clear data retention policies.
Instead, this ban means Americans will see fewer new models, slower innovation, and more expensive robot vacuums. In short, we’ll get worse vacuums than those we have today.
The Matic robot vacuum is the only model currently assembled in the US, but it doesn’t use enough US-made parts to be considered American made. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Those failures don’t point toward regulating manufacturing, but toward the need for stronger cybersecurity requirements, like those defined by the government’s Cyber Trust Mark program. But that program doesn’t exist yet, and if it ever does, it will be entirely voluntary.
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