Tau Robotics is deploying teleoperated humanoid robots into San Francisco homes and offices, charging customers $30 an hour per machine for cleaning services.
The company uses the paid cleaning sessions as a vehicle to collect real-world training data for its artificial intelligence robotics models.
Two of Tau’s modified Unitree G1 robots vacuumed, mopped, and wiped surfaces during a recent visit documented by MarketWatch, with remote human operators guiding their every movement.
A pair of robots costs $60 an hour to hire, and the company has logged roughly 160 paid robot hours across nearly 100 cleaning sessions using its fleet of eight machines.
Founding engineer Ted Pinkerton accompanied the robots during the session, communicating with their remote operators through an earpiece throughout the visit.
The robots climbed stairs to a third-floor apartment with teleoperator assistance and handled tasks including moving books, clearing a charging cord, and relocating a spoon rest before wiping a counter.
Dishwasher loading exposed clear hardware limitations, with one robot struggling to grip a smooth glass using its pincer hands before eventually securing it by the rim.
A small knife lying across a utensil basket also proved difficult to retrieve, and Pinkerton acknowledged that a dish had broken during an earlier customer session.
The Unitree G1 bodies cost around $55,000 each before Tau applies its own modifications, making each unit a significant capital investment for the startup.
CEO Alexander Koch described each machine as “jointly controlled by a human operator and AI,” though the company’s own terms of service state the robot “is not autonomous” and “a person is controlling it.”
Cleaning sessions require live video access to the customer’s home, and unblurred footage is stored indefinitely for model training unless customers request deletion after their session.
Customers can choose to exclude specific rooms from robot access, an option that reporter Christine Ji exercised for her bedroom and bathroom during the documented visit.
Koch noted that relatively simple tasks like vacuuming an empty hallway require far less training data than unusual household situations, citing a prior incident where a vacuum became entangled with a mouse trap.
The company’s robots are dressed in black Tau Robotics uniforms and given names including Chelsea, Elon, and Tony, each assigned to specific cleaning specialties.
Chelsea focuses on kitchens and bathrooms, while Elon is designed for recurring visits and can eventually remember where household items belong after multiple sessions.
Tony handles deep cleaning duties including baseboards, tile grout, window tracks, under refrigerators, and behind washing machines.
Koch said Tau plans to scale up to 1,000 cleanings per week in San Francisco by 2027, with expansion to other U.S. cities and international markets planned by 2028.
Despite the ambition, experts predict it will take at least five to ten years before humanoid robots can perform household tasks effectively and reliably without human guidance.
