Tau Robotics' humanoids clean San Francisco homes while human pilots guide them remotely, MIT Technology Review reports

In MIT Technology Review on 6 November, Grace Huckins describes booking Tau Robotics, a San Francisco start-up, to clean her apartment with its humanoid robots. The robots are about four and a half feet tall. They still need a lot of human guidance: human pilots steer them remotely through cameras in the robots' heads and wrists, she reports, though co-founder Cornelia Weinzierl says the robot can already vacuum and mop without help.

The robot climbed the building's steps unsteadily and knocked over a closed bottle of olive oil. One visit ended before the booked hour was up, when heat shut down the equipment its remote controller was using and the robot could not clean without that help, MIT Technology Review reports. “The amount of work and time that we spend just optimizing, for example, timings and connectivity is crazy,” Weinzierl told the magazine.

Prices have changed since Huckins booked. Tau was offering $30 for an hour-long clean with one robot; it now charges $60 for a weekly clean with two robots, or $100 for a one-off visit, the magazine reports. The company has completed “only a couple hundred cleanings so far”, and each clean also produces training data for its models.

The account is a measured look at where home humanoids are: paid service in real homes, but with people doing much of the steering. Remote piloting lets a start-up sell the service now and collect the data it needs to make the robots work on their own later.

• Reported The robots still need a lot of human guidance, with pilots steering them remotely through cameras in their heads and wrists, MIT Technology Review reports. MIT Technology Review
• Reported Tau now charges $60 for a weekly clean with two robots or $100 for a one-off visit, and has done only a couple hundred cleanings, MIT Technology Review reports. MIT Technology Review
• Claimed Co-founder Cornelia Weinzierl says the robot can already vacuum and mop without help. MIT Technology Review