Matic, the Mountain View company behind a camera-guided floor-cleaning robot, says its robot and charging dock are the first home robot products cleared from the FCC Covered List. The Department of War granted the devices Conditional Approval after a national security review, and on October 2 the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau exempted them in Public Notice DA 26-1063. Matic joins Husqvarna and ANSCER Robotics as the only robotics companies approved so far.
Before July, this kind of approval didn’t exist for robots. Now it decides who can bring a new model to the U.S. market.
What the July Rule Did
On July 28 the FCC added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices, along with power inverters, to the Covered List, its list of equipment judged an unacceptable risk to national security. The definition is broad. It covers robots that move on the ground and avoid obstacles, operate remotely or on their own, weigh more than 4.4 pounds, and carry sensors, a network connection and autonomous navigation software. Autonomous mobile robots, humanoids and quadrupeds are in. Drones, cars, fixed industrial arms and medical robots are out. A robot vacuum fits easily.
New models on the list can’t get FCC equipment authorization, which means they can’t be imported, marketed or sold here. Products already authorized stay legal to use and sell, and a waiver allows security updates for them until January 1, 2029. The way back in is a Conditional Approval from the Department of War, which asks for detailed disclosures on ownership, investors, supply chains and U.S. manufacturing plans.
The definition of foreign-produced is strict. A device counts as domestic only if it meets the Buy American Act standard: made in the United States, with domestic components above 65% of total cost, a threshold that rises to 75% in 2029. Where a company keeps its headquarters doesn’t matter. Matic designs and assembles its robots in California and still went through the review, and its exemption is tied to its onshoring plan and continued vetting.
Why Cameras Made It a Security Question
Matic’s robot uses five cameras and on-device AI to map a home in 3D and recognize what’s in its path. The company’s answer to the obvious worry is architecture. The whole perception system runs on the robot, so maps, video and audio stay in the house; it doesn’t need an internet connection, talks to its app over local Wi-Fi and shares usage data only if the owner opts in. Its core compute comes from NVIDIA. The founders, Navneet Dalal and Mehul Nariyawala, previously built Flutter, which Google acquired, and worked on Google Nest’s camera and doorbell products.
That design read as a privacy feature when Matic launched. Under the July rule it’s also a market-access argument, and Dalal, now CEO, is making it openly: a robot with cameras moving through a home has to earn more trust than ordinary consumer electronics, he says, and on-device processing should be the baseline for every company putting cameras in American homes.
Who Gets Through
Chinese brands such as Roborock, Ecovacs and Dreame lead the robot vacuum market. iRobot, which built the category with the Roomba, filed for Chapter 11 last December and agreed to be taken over by Picea Robotics, its Shenzhen-based contract manufacturer and lender, which makes its products in China and Vietnam. Under the July rule, any new model from these companies needs the same Department of War clearance Matic just got.
Husqvarna, a Swedish group, is also on the approved list, so a foreign name doesn’t rule a company out. The price of entry is disclosure and a credible plan to build in the United States. For an industry that grew on cheap overseas manufacturing and cloud-connected cameras, that’s a new business model. Matic’s approval shows the path exists. It also shows how few companies have walked it so far: three.