A PROFESSIONAL cleaner arrives at the door with an unusual partner — a specialized domestic robot. This futuristic scenario is now a reality in Shenzhen, where the nation’s first home cleaning robot has officially entered the consumer service market.

Chen Guo, a resident of Bao’an District, got a firsthand look at this human-robot collaboration when the doorbell rang at 11 a.m. one recent morning. Greeting her was a duo: a professional cleaner and her robotic assistant.

Once inside, the robot went to work. It identified and organized scattered shoes, tidied tabletops, and cleared toys from the floor. Spotting books left on a sofa, it stacked them and returned them to the bookcase. The unit then switched between tasks — wiping surfaces and cleaning the cat litter box — in a single, fluid operation.

In the bedroom, the human cleaner and robot worked as a team, each holding a corner of the duvet to fold it with precision. As the three-hour session drew to a close, the robot checked the waste bins, replaced the liners, and carried the trash to the door.

The service model plays to the strengths of both humans and robots. The robot handles repetitive, labor-intensive tasks — sweeping, tidying, and surface cleaning— while the human cleaner focuses on work that requires a personal touch: communicating with clients, deep disinfection, and mite removal.

The unpredictability of home environments has long frustrated robot deployment. The cleaning robot’s developer, Shenzhen-based Independent Variable Robotics Technology Co. Ltd., also known as X Square, says it has cracked the code. Its robots are engineered to adapt to real-world conditions, and by manufacturing core components in-house, X Square has driven down costs enough to make large-scale commercialization viable.

The new service has proven instantly popular. “The earliest available slot I could find is now April 1,” said Liu, another Bao’an District resident. “A three-hour session costs only 74 yuan [around US$10.70] — about half the price of a traditional manual-only clean.”

With demand outpacing supply, developer X Square said it is ramping up production. The company aims to stabilize supply and refine the user experience as it moves to expand its presence in the burgeoning smart-home service sector.

(SD News)