I don't recall seeing any "home trials" of Roombas either, yet tens of millions in sales later, they seem to be doing OK. Ava is a platform, not a single device http://www.irobot.com/filelibrary/pdfs/hrd/ava/Ava-Brochure-May2-2011.pdf From the looks of it, it encompasses the autonomous navigation and ability to recognize and interact with its environment similar (allegedly) to the Carebot, but also provides live 2 way video and audio interaction with a human, a key missing component of the Carebot IMHO.
Of course the real differentiation is that iRobot had over $100 million in revenues last quarter and $11.5 million in operating profit, and has $150 million in working capital, $122 million of it cash. GOSY had $0 in revenues over the last 4 years and has over $1 million in negative working capital.