Human-robot cleaning service enters over 100 homes in China

A cleaner folds a bed sheet with a robot in a house in Nanshan district, Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (Photo/Zhou Qian)

When the doorbell rang, Chen Zishun, a resident in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, opened the door to find not only a cleaning lady but also an embodied AI cleaning robot.

The intelligent home cleaning service is jointly run by X Square Robot Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and home services platform 58.com.

The first batch of robot cleaners recently went on duty, working alongside human staff to tackle household chores. The service quickly attracted eager testers, and Chen managed to secure a spot after a half-month wait.

During the cleaning process, the robot focused on the living and dining rooms, picking up trash and organizing surfaces, while the cleaning lady headed straight to the bedrooms. In the living room, the robot moved carefully around obstacles, picking up scattered items, sorting them neatly, and wiping the tables.

According to Li Ziwen, a manager at 58.com in Shenzhen, robots handle repetitive, physically demanding tasks, including tidying tables, arranging sofas and organizing shoes. Human cleaners, meanwhile, focus on more complex, detailed or deep-cleaning tasks.

The robot learns on the job, observing a wide variety of household environments and quickly improving its skills.

"After each task, it uploads anonymized perception and operation data to the training platform to refine its model," Li explained. "During its first in-home test, it took over 10 minutes just to pick up a towel. A week later, it could independently wipe a table. Today, it can handle pet waste, fold clothes and perform other tasks."

After about three hours, the cleaning lady had finished the bedrooms, while the robot had completed the living and dining rooms. Previously, routine cleaning for a 130-square-meter home would take four to five hours.

Demand for the service is surging. On 58.com, eight slots are available per day, and appointments are already booked up for half a month. Pricing for robot-assisted cleaning is the same as for human-only cleaning, with three hours of service costing about 140 yuan ($20).

Wang Jiashen, an engineer at X Square Robot Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., said the company is focused on making its robots better suited for home environments by improving navigation and obstacle avoidance, while ensuring reliable performance in real-world conditions. The company's robot cleaners have already served more than 100 households in Shenzhen and Beijing.