Tau Robotics launches invite-only humanoid home cleaning service in San Francisco at $30 an hour

Tau Robotics, a U.S. robotics startup founded in 2024 and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has unveiled an invite-only humanoid home cleaning service priced at $30 per hour. The company, which has fewer than 10 employees, previously raised about $3 million in a pre-seed round in September 2024. Videos released by the company show the robot washing its hands, dispensing soap, shutting off the tap, wiping surfaces, mopping floors, picking up trash and throwing it away. According to the source article, all of the videos were shown at normal speed rather than accelerated playback, which has been common in many home robot demos. The same report said the demonstrations were teleoperated rather than fully autonomous. Tau’s approach, as described in the article, is to use remote operation to bridge current capability gaps, enter real household settings earlier, and build a data loop from actual deployments. The company currently presents three service-focused humanoids — Chelsea, Elon and Tony — aimed at kitchens and bathrooms, recurring cleanup, and deep cleaning tasks respectively. The service remains limited in rollout, and consumer willingness to pay for a remotely operated humanoid with onboard monitoring in the home is still unclear.