--- title: "A rough week for hardware companies" url: https://daily.dev/posts/a-rough-week-for-hardware-companies-h3dnnvti1 source_url: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/21/a-rough-week-for-hardware-companies/ type: article source: "TechCrunch" published: 2025-12-21T22:21:14.595Z updated: 2026-03-15T03:21:35.326Z tags: ["hardware", "supply-chain", "tech-news"] reading_time: 6 upvotes: 26 comments: 2 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # A rough week for hardware companies **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 6 min read · 26 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary Three hardware companies—iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes—filed for bankruptcy within a week, facing similar challenges despite selling different products (robotic vacuums, lidar sensors, and e-bikes). Common issues included tariff pressures from Chinese manufacturing dependencies, failed major acquisition deals (notably iRobot's blocked Amazon acquisition), pandemic-driven revenue peaks followed by steep declines, and inability to diversify beyond their flagship products. The bankruptcies highlight structural challenges in hardware manufacturing, including supply chain concentration in China and difficulty maintaining growth after initial product success. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@sam7work** · 6 upvotes > Yup, Trumps economic sanctions and tariffs are working, for most countries and companies who where able to diversify away from the us, it's going to be tough but maybe survivable, for the US , not so much. That was totally expected, and a lot more will come in 2026 **@byteoutlaw** · 3 upvotes > And 'China' is buying up now! :D (buying Roooombaba aka iRobot) --- Tags: [#hardware](https://daily.dev/tags/hardware), [#supply-chain](https://daily.dev/tags/supply-chain), [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/a-rough-week-for-hardware-companies-h3dnnvti1)