A few days ago the news broke through the Reuters news agency, in which the head of the company iRobot, manufacturer of the Roomba vacuum cleaner, had the intention of commercializing the tracking data of all the homes where he is making his functions. The mapping carried out by this device is necessary to know where it has and can carry out its work, but the company wanted to obtain a plus by selling this type of information to the big companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon, in order to design better smart products that fit as many households as possible.
Apple's HomePod is a device that will also be responsible when it hits the market shortly before the end of the year, mapping the entire room where it is located in order to emit the sound so that it can be heard perfectly at any point in the room. All of this is possible thanks to the A8 chip and a series of sensors that analyze objects in the room in real time. But all this data will not come out device for Apple to market, at least that is what Apple says to the user question.
A user concerned about the intentions that Apple could have with the HomePod has sent an email to the Cupertino offices, where they quickly replied stating that at no time is information sent to Apple's servers until the user says the words «Hey Siri » to be able to answer or perform the functions that we entrust to you.
What Apple hasn't confirmed is if you can really be interested in getting the kind of information that Roomba can provide you, but considering that it can be of great help to design products of this type, it is more than likely that it is. It must also be taken into account that the head of iRobot, stated that the data on the mapping of the homes where his robotic vacuum cleaner is available will not be shared with third parties without the authorization of the owner.
In the end what is clear is that iRobot will do what it wants, whether or not it has the authorization of the owners, since the user will have no way of knowing if our data has been commercialized or if the company has fulfilled its privacy commitment.