The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has banned all foreign-made mobile robots from the country — including robot vacuums. This means that people in the U.S. won't be able to get new robot vacuums from brands such as Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, and Samsung.
On Tuesday, the FCC announced that it has added "advanced robotic devices" made outside the U.S. to its Covered List. This list documents communications equipment and services that the U.S. government believes pose an "unacceptable risk" to national security. Products on the Covered List are prohibited from receiving FCC equipment authorisation, which is mandatory for most electronic devices imported or sold within the country. As such, this update means that foreign-manufactured advanced robotic devices cannot be imported or sold in the U.S. The FCC's announcement specifically mentioned limbed robots such as humanoids and quadrupeds, leaving no doubt that tech such as XPENG's humanoid IRON robot and Unitree's Go2 Pro Robot Dog will be barred from the country.
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However, robot vacuums also neatly fit within the ban's scope. As cited by the FCC, the National Security Determination defines "advanced robotic devices" as:A mechanical mobile device, including autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadrupeds, that – i. Is capable of locomotion, obstacle avoidance, navigation, or movement on the ground;ii. Operates at a distance from a human operator or supervisor based on commands or in response to sensor data or any combination thereof; and iii. The combined weight of the device and, if applicable, ground station or docking station is over 4.4lbs; and iv. Contains a component falling within each of the below subparagraphs: i. a sensor capable of perceiving its environment; ii. a component that is capable of providing network connectivity (wired or wireless, including Bluetooth/WiFi, cellular, or satellite) with connection speeds of at least 200 kbps in either direction; and iii. software running either locally or remotely, including firmware and AI or machine-learning model weights, that controls the robot’s autonomous navigation or movement perception, data collection, or remote command-and-controlSuch features are integral to robot vacuums' operations, which require them to independently navigate areas in order to clean them. The FCC has since confirmed that the U.S. ban does include robot vacuums, as reported by The Verge. Mashable has reached out to Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, and Samsung for comment.
