This Home Robot Clears Tables and Loads the Dishwasher All by Itself

Memo the robot carefully grasps two coffee glasses simultaneously, holding one between its thumb and pointer finger while using the rest of its hand to grab a second—a feat of dexterity that signals how close we might be to getting real help with household chores. The Wall-E-like robot from Sunday Robotics can make espresso and load dishwashers, thanks to an innovative training method where remote workers wear $400 gloves resembling the robot's hands to demonstrate household tasks. "We want to build robots that free people from laundry, from the dishes, from all chores," says Tony Zhao, Sunday's CEO, as his creation rolls around a Mountain View kitchen on its wheeled platform.

The breakthrough lies in Sunday's approach to gathering training data—those glove-wearing humans provide more accurate signals than traditional robot control methods, feeding an AI model that translates human dexterity into robotic action. While robot demos often overpromise, venture capitalists and robotics experts are betting that Sunday's full-stack approach, combining custom hardware with AI models, could finally deliver the home robots we've long imagined. Beta testing begins next year for early adopters willing to embrace a slower, imperfect robotic future.