FCC: Ban on Foreign-Made Robots Includes Robot Vacuums

7/30/2026 at 1:20:26 AM

Yikes. So, new robovacs are banned..whenever this is effective. (Immediately?)

Is this protectionism?

I don't like it, it'll disrupt the robovac market worldwide.

Edit: I like competition and technology advancement. Running from it in the name of security is naive. One must invest in security not obscurity (by making these robots rare inside the USA).

- https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-786A1.pdf

by ncr100

7/30/2026 at 1:46:59 AM

everything this administration does is one part grift, one part poor policy positions.

by cyanydeez

7/30/2026 at 1:25:41 AM

Nothing says land of the free like being told you're not allowed to buy good cars or good vacuums.

by bashtoni

7/30/2026 at 1:41:46 AM

Quit being naive. It is a legitimate security issue. Imagine telling someone 50 years ago we would have a new peer adversary and we’d allow them to sell us robots that roam our homes and offices with microphones and cameras. You’d seem crazy.

I know it’s inconvenient and on a 1-pass thought pattern it seems oppressive, but in the long term it is better to rip this bandaid off. Same with the routers. This is the ONLY thing I can agree with this admin on.

by sockaddr

7/30/2026 at 1:45:43 AM

They aren't MY adversary. The government of the US has been acting pretty adversarial lately. Should I avoid US manufactured goods too?

by amanaplanacanal

7/30/2026 at 3:43:24 AM

I'd like to disagree but can't. Letting a foreign power "sell" internet connected microphones and cameras into "our" homes is totally asking for it. I wonder what the rules are around security cameras and similar?

Not sure I mind the routers so much. By the time the traffic is traversing the router it had better be encrypted. OTOH an army of domestic routers can at the very least be made into a quite astounding botnet and if we were to dig deeper I'm sure the data around which hardware address comes online and when could be made extremely useful.

In short: you're right. It's not protectionist bullshit, it's a wide variety of reasonable concerns. It also might be a horse that's bolted.

by RantyDave

7/30/2026 at 4:21:56 AM

I agree it's an issue but maybe we are going at it from the wrong angle. Why just be scared of the Chinese? We should protect ourselves from both domestic & foreign adversaries.

Any electronic device with vision, sound, or radio communications capability should be required to be source-available or at least independently audited. Proprietary code must run in sandboxed black-boxes that can't directly communicate/interact with the outside world.

Sounds like an impossible ask? Well, banning Chinese robots/routers is also an impossible ask.

by nulld3v

7/30/2026 at 1:47:53 AM

yes, it's the chinese you should be afraid of! No, not the people shooting it's own citizens under the guise of ethnic cleansing. It's those scary vacuum robots.

by cyanydeez

7/30/2026 at 2:32:37 AM

The free market efficiently at work!

by smrtinsert

7/30/2026 at 1:54:32 AM

Even if you think banning Chinese-made vacuum robots is reasonable, it seems bizarre to do so by withholding FCC approval. The fear isn't that they'd spam our RF spectrum... is it?

by valleyer

7/30/2026 at 2:33:00 AM

It seems like the FCC is a convenient source of rubber stamps for the administration.

by hakfoo

7/30/2026 at 2:41:39 AM

It seems so. But why here? The president has the power to ban imports for security reasons; unlike many of his tariffs, a narrow ban like that would likely hold up in court, as long as it were accompanied by some made-up justification.

by valleyer

7/30/2026 at 1:56:04 AM

I’m so glad I bought three eufy vacuums in the last year (one for each floor). They really do improve hygiene by being super consistent in cleaning schedules.

by seanmcdirmid

7/30/2026 at 3:20:41 AM

I miss Sleepy Joe. He had a few gross protectionist tendencies, but nothing like this nincompoop.

by nozzlegear

7/30/2026 at 1:09:52 AM

> However, the US ban only covers new advanced robot models, not existing products that have already received FCC equipment authorization for sale in the US. The "action does not impact a consumer’s continued use of devices they previously acquired," the FCC says. "Nor does it prevent retailers from continuing to sell, import, or market relevant models approved previously.”

Exactly what I was wondering about.

by jersmtpd

7/30/2026 at 3:36:08 AM

I thought drones were banned already. Are they now un-banned?

by RantyDave

7/30/2026 at 2:57:57 AM

I wonder why Trump doesn't implement rules for market access like China did. "Want to sell robot vaccums to the fabulously lucrative American consumer market? Sure, but you must manufacture them in America, with a progressively larger percentage of American parts, and submit to audits of software and hardware."

by Sabinus

7/30/2026 at 2:39:13 AM

Earlier on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095714

by ChrisArchitect

7/30/2026 at 2:06:02 AM

Stupid politics is going to kill America.

by cute_boi

7/30/2026 at 3:20:44 AM

Your comment indicates that you believe this will occur in the future.

It's already happened.

by andrewinardeer

7/30/2026 at 5:55:26 AM

Has killed*

by inigyou