How do you know when a robot company stops supporting a model you own?
Your robot’s app, maps and schedules can depend on a maker’s servers and software updates. How long those last is a date few makers volunteer.
Staff at the Federal Trade Commission spent part of 2024 looking for one fact about 184 smart products, from hearing aids to security cameras and door locks: how long each maker would keep updating the software.
On the makers’ own product pages, 161 of them never said. Broader internet searches came up empty for 124, about two-thirds. And once a maker stops the updates, a product like that can lose its smart features, turn insecure or quit working.
A robot with an app is one of those products. When Neato closed, owners were promised five years of cloud service; about two and a half years in, a notice on its support site ended it, and the app, maps and schedules went with it. How would you see that coming for yours?
Figure
A capability leaving after the sale
- Servers shut downNeato turned off its cloud. Nothing on the robot changed.
- What stoppedThe dashed run is the service the buyer paid for and did not get.
- Hardware unchangedThe sensor and the radio it used are both still fitted and still working.
Where a support window is written down
Start with the maker’s own site: the product listing first, then the support section. If you can’t find how long the software will be updated, ask the maker by phone, email or chat. And picture the machine without updates. A smart bulb still turns on at the wall switch; what goes is the remote control.
Read the warranty terms as well. For a product sold with a written warranty, the FTC’s staff wrote, keeping buyers in the dark about how long updates last may violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. That law requires a warranty on a consumer product over $15 to be shown to buyers before they pay.
Consumers stand to lose a lot of money if their smart products stop delivering the features they want.
Samuel Levine, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
Britain has made the date compulsory. Since April 29, 2024, makers of connectable products sold there must publish “the minimum length of time security updates will be provided along with an end date,” in words a reader without technical knowledge can follow. The statements are public, so an owner anywhere can look one up.
Some robot makers post a date for every model. Roborock promises at least two years of security updates for its robot vacuums and mowers, and lists each model by code with a launch date and an end date. For most of them, the end falls two years to the day after launch.
A period, once listed, “will not be shortened after publication,” and an extension would show up as a new date. The Roborock app has a row of its own, too, with security updates listed through December 31, 2026.
iRobot counts another way. A Roomba 575 sold in Britain gets security support through at least December 31, 2029, “or the end of the product warranty period, whichever is later.” There the calendar date is a floor, and the warranty can carry it further.
Sony named what would continue
In June 2026, Sony said it would stop selling the aibo ERS-1000 robot dog in Japan once stock ran out, while sales in the US would go on. Tech support, replacement parts and the cloud plans would all be maintained. For an aibo, those plans hold its “memories of things that it’s seen and heard.”
Retired iRobot models get similar treatment. Look one up on the company’s support site and you’re greeted with “Oops! It looks like you have found a retired product that is no longer available.” The robot’s one-year warranty “is still valid from the date of purchase.” Neither statement puts a date on any of it.
A safety recall is written with more precision. It names the model numbers and sets out a remedy, and in the US the CPSC posts it, so any owner can check a model against it.
So how do you know? In advance, only where a maker has written down a date, and for security updates on robots sold in Britain, the law now requires one. When support ends, you hear it from the maker: a notice on its support site, or a statement about what will carry on.
Where to look
What each place can tell an owner
| Place | What it can tell you | An example |
|---|---|---|
| A maker’s support-period list | An end date for security updates, model by model | Roborock, most end dates two years after launch |
| A UK compliance statement | A minimum period of security updates, with an end date | Roomba 575, through December 31, 2029, or the warranty’s end if later |
| The warranty terms | What the maker owes you, and from when | iRobot, one year from the date of purchase |
| A notice or statement | That a model or a service is ending, and what carries on | Sony’s aibo, with support, parts and cloud plans kept |
| A recall notice | The models affected and the remedy | Posted by the CPSC in the US |
Levine’s advice was that shoppers “should ask questions and consider how long their product will last.” For the two robot vacuums Roborock launched on January 4, 2023, its list puts the end of security updates at January 4, 2025, whether an owner bought one on launch day or in the last week of 2024.
