We sent a humanoid robot to clean a stranger's apartment in SF
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Hey HN, Aron here, founder of Gatsby. Today (May 14, 2026) we made U.S. history with the first humanoid robot cleaning service delivered to a consumer in the US — we picked someone off our SF waitlist, drove a humanoid to their apartment, and it cleaned the place.Pricing is $150 flat in SF, any size apartment. Cleaning took a few hours including setup.Curious to hear any thoughts and happy to answer any questions.
HN · launched May 15, 2026 · 6 upvotes (top 69%) · 0 views
Niche: robotics software and platforms · 195 launches, 9 in the last 7 days ▼ -36% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- B2C
- AI feature
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 195 launches in robotics software and platforms →
Could you build this?
No Operating a physical humanoid robot to perform real-world domestic cleaning tasks requires physical hardware, teleoperation or autonomous robotics manipulation policies, and complex real-world operations. Software vibe coding cannot create physical robotics hardware, low-level actuators, control loops, or teleoperation stacks.
What it would actually take: A service like Gatsby requires custom or off-the-shelf humanoid hardware platforms (e.g., Unitree, Fourier, or custom bipedal/wheeled robots), equipped with stereoscopic cameras, LiDAR, and low-latency WebRTC teleoperation rigs (VR headsets + haptic gloves) or imitation-learning neural network policies. Building this requires specialized mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotic motion planning, computer vision, and hands-on physical fleet logistics.
Discussion
4 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Figure (X AI) - parcel sorting robots
Concerns raised: Robot precision too low for delicate manipulation tasks like scrubbing, Unclear if fully autonomous or teleoperated by humans in VR headsets, Data collection practices and sharing with other AI companies not disclosed, Scope of cleaning capabilities unclear - surface wiping vs. toilets, beds, trash
Feature requests: Detailed specifications of robot hardware on landing page, Clear documentation of what cleaning tasks robot can/cannot perform, Transparency on monitoring process and who has access to status
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 66 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #58 of 67 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 192 days after the earliest competitor.
- Nori: The $1688 humanoid robot · yc · 2026-08-20 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.61
- Piggy Robotics - Humanoid robots · yc · 2025-11-21 · 753 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- We built a camera only robot vacuum for less than $300 (well almost) · hn · 2026-04-06 · 109 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- YOR · hn · 2026-02-12 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- Sprout, a fun-sized, developer-ready humanoid robot · hn · 2026-01-27 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- 10 Bucks a Room · ph · 2026-11-11 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- Maid Sailors Cleaning Service · ph · 2026-10-27 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- Tensr - Robotic Factories that Build Robots from Humanoids to Robots for the International Space Station · yc · 2026-08-25 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.42
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.