The company unveiled the SeeLight S1 on May 20, calling it China’s first general-purpose household humanoid robot developed with the Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre and the Hubei Humanoid Robotics Industry Alliance, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

The two-armed wheeled robot can perform household chores including chopping vegetables, frying eggs, loading washing machines, hanging laundry, making beds and opening curtains.

CEO Zhu Zheng said selected families in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, would receive the robots free of charge for testing in the first half of 2027.

Before the household rollout, 100 SeeLight S1 robots will be deployed later this month before expanding to households with elderly family members, children or pets.

Zhu said the company aims to cut the robot’s hardware price to below 100,000 yuan (US$13,900) by June 2027, about half its current cost. He added that he expects major advances in humanoid robot commercialization and embodied AI capabilities by 2028.

Chinese humanoid robots have demonstrated advanced athletic abilities, including completing half-marathons faster than elite human runners, but simpler household tasks such as folding clothes, loading dishwashers and tidying rooms remain difficult.

Experts said repetitive activities like running require relatively limited training data, while household work demands more advanced AI systems capable of adapting to changing lighting, layouts and physical conditions.

Guo Renjie, founder and CEO of robotics engineering company Zeroth, said domestic environments pose a greater challenge for robots than factories because every household is different.

"Home environments are non-standardised, where a robot faces an environment that changes every day," Guo said. He added that household robots also require smaller joint modules to reduce weight and improve mobility inside homes.

Wang Qian, chief executive of Chinese startup X Square Robot, which is launching its home-cleaning robots in late May in China, told Reuters that robot hardware development has advanced faster than artificial intelligence systems.

"The hardware is largely there. But the brain hasn't caught up," he said.

Wang said household robots could eventually become a massive industry once the technology becomes reliable enough for everyday use.

"Household labor accounts for roughly 20% of GDP, so in theory this is a 20%-of-GDP market," he said.