The Matic is the first Robovac to get an exemption from the FCC ban, although it doesn’t need one

The Matic is our favorite robot vacuum and mop, and it’s also now the first to escape the FCC’s Roomba ban.

GOOD, sort of – because Matic was not banned in the first place.

Here’s what’s actually happening: On October 2, the FCC added the original Matic, model 4MA0001, and its charging station model 4DK0008 to its ban exemption list. This allows the FCC to approve the importation, marketing and sale of these radio products.

But the Matic does not need a waiver, because its radios were already approved years ago. FCC bans on foreign drones, robots and routers do not maintain future products not to be imported into the United States, not existing ones whose radios have already been approved.

Additionally, Matic products do not obtain FCC approval. Instead, Matic ships them with a commercially available Intel AX210 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip that gets its own FCC approval. (It’s the same type of Wi-Fi card you’ll find in a desktop or laptop computer.) Matic also doesn’t have to worry specifically about an import ban, because Matic assembles its robots right here in Mountain View, California.

A waiver could theoretically be useful if Matic built new products outside the United States and tried to import them here, except that the FCC has not granted Matic blanket approval on a brand robot, as it did with Asus and Netgear routers. Instead, it specifically granted a waiver for the Matic models 4MA0001 and 4DK0008, which, again, have already made it through the FCC.

The renunciation may not be completely symbolic. The FCC is currently trying to close numerous loopholes that render its ban impotent, mulling whether to force manufacturers to disclose all components of their gadgets, and retroactively cracking down on some companies it sees as flouting the rules. Although Matic assembles its robots in the United States, it admits that it doesn’t yet source 65 percent of its components from U.S. suppliers, the threshold for it to be considered American-made, and perhaps one of those foreign components could trip it up without the waiver.

Despite this, Matic already gets its “core compute platform” from Nvidia, said co-founder and president Mehul Nariyawala. The edgeand sources other “critical components” from U.S. companies “where possible.”

And unlike some other companies that the FCC has mysteriously granted a waiver to, Matic East commit to increased production and offshoring in the United States.

“Until 3 months ago, our R&D offices and production facilities were in the same office in Mountain View, about 24,000 square feet,” Nariyawala told The Verge. “We converted all of those facilities into production facilities and moved our office to Menlo Park.”

He says Matic has gone from 1,500 robots a year ago to 17,000 today and is trying to find more and more U.S. suppliers so it can use even fewer foreign parts.

“Right now, we may be the only robot floor cleaner built in America,” he says. “This becomes one of the key value propositions of our product.”

Correction: Nariyawala is the co-founder and president of Matic, not the CEO.