Eilik Visit buttons use an Energize Lab affiliate link
Eilik Visit buttons on the homepage now use an Energize Lab affiliate link (rel=sponsored, disclosed); scores and rankings unchanged.
Updates
A dated record of real events — price changes, shutdowns, robots added, corrections to our data. On a robotics site, the data changes are the news. RSS feed.
Five longevity insight guides (Wave 1)
Added question/insight pages on server-shutdown outcomes, subscription lock-in checks, vacuums without cloud, robot dog vs vacuum job-fit, and companion lifespan — cross-linked to the graveyard, profiles and match engine. Affiliates were off at the time.
Best Robot Match launches
Initial public release: 29 robots scored across companion/quadruped/humanoid, vacuum and mower categories; Robot Graveyard database; manufacturer pages; open CC-BY dataset; longevity grades and true 3-year costs on every profile.
First full data-verification pass — 14 corrections
All records audited against manufacturer sites and credible reporting. Notable corrections: Unitree Go2 price updated to ~$2,800 (launch pricing retired); Sony Aibo subscription remodelled as 3-year bundled plan plus renewal; several vacuum and mower flagships marked as superseded by newer models.
Digital Dream Labs assets placed under court receiver — Vector's second death
A court-appointed receiver took control of Digital Dream Labs' digital assets in early July 2026, per community reporting. DDL had revived Anki's Vector after the 2019 collapse; its cloud servers had already been unreliable for over a year. Vector 2.0 is reclassified as discontinued/unsupported in our data. The community Escape Pod self-host server remains the only reliable way to keep units alive. Full history in the graveyard.
Unitree R1 and 1X NEO added
The $5,900 Unitree R1 humanoid (launched April 2026) enters the main table at #5. The 1X NEO home humanoid ($20,000, or $499/month) is listed at preorder status — with its ~60-70% autonomy and human-teleoperation privacy caveat documented prominently.
iRobot enters pre-packaged Chapter 11
Following a going-concern warning in March 2025, Roomba maker iRobot entered a pre-packaged Chapter 11 in which lender Picea takes full ownership. Brand continuity is expected, but our company-stability risk for iRobot moved to high — a live test of whether the strongest name in robot vacuums outlasts its balance sheet.
Moxie's servers switch off — the defining server-shutdown case
Embodied, Inc. ceased operations in December 2024; the children's companion robot Moxie stopped working when its cloud servers went dark on 30 January 2025. The community OpenMoxie project later enabled owners to re-flash units. Moxie remains listed on our tables as a buyer warning.
Material market events also feed the robot graveyard and the open dataset.