In this interview, Mehul Nariyawala argues that a true Level 5 home robot should behave like a human by continuously exploring the house, detecting dirt and stains, and cleaning them autonomously throughout the day, rather than remaining docked for most of the time. He emphasizes that reliable dirt detection is essential for achieving perpetual cleanliness. To make such advanced capabilities affordable, Nariyawala stresses a software‑first approach: building vision‑based autonomy that runs on‑device, delivering regular OS‑style updates that improve performance without hardware upgrades. By simplifying mechanical design, selecting cost‑effective motors, and reducing sensor count, the hardware cost can be lowered as the software improves, keeping home robotics accessible to consumers.
Chapters
Shouldn't they just throughout the day constantly explore our home, scout for dirt and dirty— and stains? And if it finds it, it should just clean it. And this feature was really critical and is really critical because we also had a long time ago asked this question that, what does it mean to be a Level 5 robot inside home? And as I had mentioned, Level 5 robot means that it should behave like humans. So in this case, it should floor clean like humans. So if it is floor cleaning like humans, then why are our robots sitting on the dock 23 hours a day? Or why they only take off when we give it a command or when we schedule it? Shouldn't they just, you know, throughout the day constantly explore our home, scout for dirt and dirty stains? And if they— if it finds it, it should just clean it because we as homeowners and users want to live in a perpetually clean home with perpetually clean floors. And dirt detection is a key piece of the puzzle that, hey, can we just go and look for dirt and find it and just keep it clean?
And so the question is, How do you keep home robotics affordable and accessible with all of these advanced AI and upcoming features coming up?
And the question is very simply by improving the software. This is why we built everything on the device. Your computers, your phones get OS updates, and they get better and smarter every year without you actually having to purchase new hardware. So in the same exact way, We wanted to enable, build this vision-based autonomy where software is the key piece of the puzzle and keep improving it. So our goal is to keep improving the software, but also as we scale, reduce the cost of the hardware, reduce the cost of the sensors. And by keeping it simple, the designs and motor selection and everything along the way, we can make it affordable and we can keep improving it.
