“A pool of water has trapped Chinese robots.”

“A pool of water has trapped Chinese robots.”

# A pool of water, trapping Chinese robots ## 01 Ten seconds of waiting In 2026, Feng Qian, the CEO of a pool robot startup, began to carefully calculate the potential value of the company. If traditional home appliance companies or channel partners were willing to take over, the valuation could reach two to three times the current amount. A few years ago, he didn’t think so. When the company’s first batch of products was sent overseas, there were only a few hundred units. Before going public, the team paid to recruit users on Facebook to fill out questionnaires, and they used the results to define the product features. According to the R&D team, this should have been a more “smart” pool robot: it could switch between horizontal and vertical modes; with an App connection, users could control direction, check battery status, and set scheduled tasks. However, the return rate quickly rose above 30%. The problem occurred in the first 10 seconds after turning on. After pressing the switch, the machine needed to complete initialization. But many users didn’t wait; they threw the machine into the pool as soon as it started working. The device moved chaotically in the water; some people, seeing that it didn’t move immediately, assumed it was broken and returned it. “Many people didn’t want to wait those 10 seconds.”…