iRobot Wants to ‘Share’ Your Home’s Data, Apple Promises to Keep It Secure

[Update 7/28/17: iRobot has issued a statement to Reuters, claiming that information from their interview with Colin Angle is partially incorrect. iRobot’s statement intends to clarify that they will not sell consumer data to Google, Apple, and Amazon. The company will instead “share” its data, with consumer consent. Continue reading with discretion.]

iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, raised eyebrows earlier this week when he declared in an interview with Reuters that he’s looking into the possibility of sharing ‘room-mapping’ data collected by his company’s Roomba automatic vacuum cleaners. Utilizing a fairly basic sensor array, it turns out the intelligent little frisbee-shaped robot vacuums are capable of collecting data pertinent to the layout of rooms in a customers’ home, which likely doesn’t bode well with the majority of Roomba owners.

Angle’s unabashed admission, however, has spawned a bit of curiosity in various factions of the web this week, and particularly within the Apple community concerning the company’s upcoming HomePod Siri speaker, which will feature essentially the same ‘room-mapping’ technology — albeit driven by a more advanced combination of the speaker’s hexagonal microphone array, A8 SoC, and sensory array, which will allow the HomePod to automatically tailor its audio-output to fit the dimensions of the room in which it’s placed.

“Would Apple Dare Consider Selling Data Collected by HomePod?” This was the primary concern among some HomePod hopefuls, one of whom decided to quench their curiosity by reaching out to the Cupertino-company in search of an answer, according to an account published by AppleInsider. Fortunately for the inquisitive, Apple provided assurance in reply to the inquiry, confirming that “No information is sent to Apple servers until HomePod recognizes the key utterance ‘Hey Siri,’ and any information after that point is encrypted and sent via an anonymous Siri ID. For room sensing, all analysis is done locally on the device and is not shared with Apple.”

‘Nothing New Here’

AppleInsider then decided to reach out to Apple in order to independently verify the authenticity of the email response, and was told there was “nothing at all new here” — meaning that the HomePod’s technology doesn’t mark a departure from the company’s long-standing privacy policy regarding Siri software and hardware, which clearly states, “At Apple, your trust means everything to us. That’s why we respect your privacy and protect it with strong encryption, plus strict policies that govern how all data is handled.”

It should be assuring for expectant HomePod owners, therefore, to know that Apple’s policy remains unchanged — even though the advanced technology incorporated within the HomePod, itself, is anything but ordinary. Incorporating a total of six advanced microphones, the HomePod will not only be able to listen for ‘Hey Siri’ commands from its user, but in conjunction with the A8 chip, will also be capable of measuring “time to flight,” which analyzes where each wall and “sound-reflecting object” is positioned within a room. In this way, the HomePod’s technology will be able to ‘map’ the room in which it’s placed, and adjust the audio output from its seven tweeters and dedicated subwoofer accordingly to maximize the quality thereof.

As for the Roomba, unfortunately: Angle apparently believes the data collected by it could be of interest to companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google, in that it may help to improve data sets used in their home automation software platforms and services, and possibly even “help customers” by suggesting new products that meet their needs at home. And iRobot has supposedly already begun searching for third-party entities who may be interested in acquiring this data.