You can’t make a great humanoid home robot without cracking a few eggs, and in that way GigaAI’s SeeLight S1 almost succeeds. It doesn’t break the eggs, but it does seem to bend the rules of good culinary skills and deliver some of the worst scrambled eggs and tomatoes I’ve seen in a long time.
The SeeLight S1 attempts this kitchen adventure during a lengthy YouTube video demonstration, in which the new humanoid bot — it was revealed on May 20 — rolls around (not having legs is probably one of its better features), an apartment in China, and handles a wide range of home care tasks.
The robot cooks, cleans, organizes, washes and even folds clothes. I’m not saying it does any of these things well.
The $28,000 (roughly Yen equivalent) robot has a humanoid torso and articulated legs bolted into a rolling base. The hands are a pair of claws attached to arms that look more like industrial robot fixtures than anything human.
Look at
It starts its day by making what looks like heat-and-serve tofu in the microwave, then quickly moves to a kitchen table, where it cuts tomatoes into very large eighths; has no mouth, it cannot understand “bit-sized”.
Next, the SeeLight S1 makes some scrambled eggs, starting with two shelled eggs in a bowl. They are whipped quickly, but it is also clear that most of the video in these tasks has been sped up. So it is not clear how long it takes for the robot to do something.
The robot oils the pan and then cooks the scrambled eggs haphazardly before tossing in the tomatoes. The eggs looked overcooked and the tomatoes undercooked. Either way, this robot served them. I also saw it over-fry an egg with only slightly more success.
Later, the SeeLight S1 washed something. The strange thing is that it seemed to pull dry clothes from the dryer and then transfer the same four pieces to the washer. It was not a convincing demonstration.
The robot is also shown with the apartment’s family, with the mother asking the robot to pick up what they need to go and start the day. It falls over and grabs bags, backpacks, clothes and a hat. In fact, the hat somehow appeared on the robot’s head.
According to several reports, GigaAI’s robot is expected to enter trials in Chinese homes in 2027. GigaAI hopes to cut the price in half by 2028, and hopefully the SeeLight S1 will know how to properly make some eggs by then.
The need is real
Why make humanoid robots at all, especially if they can’t perform many of these so-called frontier tasks as fast or better than a human? One day it may be an absolute necessity to have such robots,
China’s population is reportedly declining and aging. There are fewer babies and more aging people. This is a story that’s playing out around the world, and it’s one of the reasons why places like China and Japan are trying to accelerate home helper/home care humanoid robots like the SeeLight S1.
The GigaAI SeeLight S1 might not be that impressive right now. Still, it’s likely imperative that it improve over the next decade because there could soon be millions of people who need help managing their homes and possibly caring for elderly loved ones who can’t care for themselves.
