Lazy bones rejoice as SF robotics company introduces house-cleaning robot

There’s some good news for homeowners who despise doing chores.

“Yeah, yesterday we made it public that we are starting to offer a cleaning service with humanoids in SF,” Alex Koch, CEO and co-founder of Tau Robotics, told told ABC7.

The company is offering the robots to a selected group of applicants in San Francisco at a rate of $30 an hour.  

As of late, Koch explained that artificial intelligence technology isn’t able to control the robot on its own, so a person needs to control the robot from a central location with help from AI.

Koch told ABC7 that the goal of the robots is to expand access to home cleaning services.

Videos on Tau Robotics’s website show robots wiping down counters, tables and worktops, vacuuming floors, taking out the trash and clearing out clutter. They also show one leaving a minivan to head into a cleaning shift.  

Despite the excitement surrounding the technology, some aren’t convinced that it can be adopted extensively. Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley engineering professor with 40 years of experience in the discipline, told ABC7 he was doubtful the robots could provide home cleaning services efficiently. 

“I would be very surprised if these could do anything close to a useful job of cleaning a house. So, being able to pick up objects off the floor is even still a challenge for robots today,” Goldberg told the station. “And being able to sweep and wipe out areas of, you know, counters and underneath things, that is very, very difficult.”

He also questioned the validity of the tech company’s videos showing the robots cleaning.

“You don’t know if it’s been speeded up, you don’t know if there’s a human behind-the-scenes, you don’t know if they’ve kind of very carefully constructed the environment just right, so it works that time,” Goldberg said.

Koch, however, told ABC7 that the robots are in fact already capable of handling a lot of household tasks. 

“But like, vacuum cleaning for example, that’s working pretty well already. And yeah, like basic, wiping the kitchen counter. That’s also pretty doable,” Koch said.