Where it works
Airports, shopping centres, warehouses and large public buildings, scrubbing hard floors on scheduled routes.
Large hard-floor spaces are the easiest commercial cleaning to automate and the most expensive to staff. An airport concourse or distribution centre needs the same route driven every night, and the work happens when the building is empty, which removes most of the human-interaction problem. That combination is why scrubbers reached commercial maturity years before machines that have to open a door or handle a fixture.
Offered as a service subscription that bundles the machine, maintenance and replacement.
What it means to own one
At the top of the cleaning bracket, a single unit bills more per month than three serving robots. The trade is a heavier machine, a larger service obligation and customers who sign longer.
At the top of the cleaning bracket the unit is a serious capital item, and the monthly rate reflects a machine that is heavy, consumes water and chemicals, and needs scheduled servicing. Customers sign longer because switching disrupts a nightly routine, which makes revenue more predictable than in hospitality. The flip side is that a unit off contract is a large hole in the month rather than a small one.