In a frankly astonishing turn of events for robots previously only seen executing precarious dance routines or dramatically face-planting in promotional videos, a humanoid has finally been pressed into service performing something genuinely, unequivocally useful: cleaning lavatories. Chinese startup Zerith Robotics has, with all the quiet efficiency of a well-oiled machine, deployed its Zerith H1 wheeled humanoid robots across more than 20 genuine commercial locations. We’re talking proper shopping malls and bustling office buildings in Hefei and Shenzhen. Instead of attempting a half-baked parkour routine, these bots are now engaged in the rather less glamorous, but infinitely more practical, work of mopping floors, polishing sinks, and even lending a helping hand to shoppers. It’s a subtle, yet utterly pivotal, shift from meticulously choreographed demos to actual, commercially viable labour.
The company, Zerith Robotics, only officially popped into existence in January 2025, birthed by a crack team from the Tsinghua AI Robotics Laboratory. Despite its tender youth, this plucky startup has already bagged millions in funding and secured multi-million yuan orders, with ambitions to roll out over 500 humanoid robots by the end of the year. The H1 model, specifically engineered for the noble arts of housekeeping and service, glides on wheels and boasts a height-adjustable chassis, enabling it to tackle a veritable smorgasbord of chores that were, until now, firmly within the human purview.
Why This Is More Than Just a Bit of a Polish
While the internet’s been busy fawning over bipedal bots doing backflips and hogging the headlines, it turns out the immediate commercial viability for humanoids lies, rather pragmatically, with their less showy, wheeled cousins. The deployment of the Zerith H1 really hammers home a crucial industry trend: for the time being, the true path to commercialisation is, quite literally, paved. By wisely opting for wheels over complex, eye-wateringly expensive legs, companies can deploy humanoids in structured environments like malls and hotels with far greater reliability and a much kinder price tag. This isn’t quite the full-blown sci-fi fantasy of a robot butler in every home just yet, but it is a critical, albeit unglamorous, stride in that direction. It’s proving, unequivocally, that the business case for humanoids starts with scrubbing floors, not winning dance-offs.
