Vibe 01
A humanoid service robot, shaped for hotel housekeeping.
Project Duration: 20 Weeks & Ongoing
As seen on Shark Tank: Taiwan
Partnered with 4 undisclosed hotels for trial runs
CLIENT
Vibe Robotics
ROLE
Lead Industrial Designer (contract)
FOCUS
Enclosures, function, and form factor
TOOLS
Solidworks, Rhino, Keyshot, Claude
More than 50% of U.S. hotels are understaffed
Housekeeping is the hardest role to fill - 38% of hotels named it their most difficult department to staff
Raising pay isn’t fixing it: 70% of hotels have increased wages and are still short-staffed
Guests get less service, and hotels lose money
How might we give understaffed housekeeping teams a reliable extra set of hands for repetitive work, without intruding on guests or staff?
Introducing Vibe 01
An all purpose housekeeping humanoid service robot for understaffed hotels
Overnight Laundry
Vibe 01 is designed to unload the dryer, sort the linens, fold the towels and shelve them for the morning shift.
Housekeeping suppourt
Vibe 01 is does the houseman’s runs, bringing linens and supplies up to housekeepers so they can stay on their floor.
Guest Requests, Day or Night
Water, towels, toiletries and amenities, brought up to the guest’s door.
The Details
The Base
Hub-motor service wheels for improved floor and threshold handling. The Slamtech A1M8-R6 lidar for quick room mapping.
Light Strip Status Indicators
01
Blue
Working: Operating normally on a task, and safe to pass
02
Yellow
Needs Assistance: Waiting for staff intervention.
03
Red
Charging / Idle: Docked or resting. Not moving.
Emergency Stop
In the case of a malfunction, an employee can trigger an emergency stop with the back side pedal.
Hidden Camera Lens
Black nano textured glass to hide the camera sensor inside Vibe 01's head
Gripper Jaws
Redesigned OpenArm grippers with silicone finish and rubber pads for versatile grip and durability
The Signature Vibe 01 C Arch
Establishing a recognizable torso feature
The Process
Head Designs
Iterated through various different head designs, evaluating them for friendliness, service like features, and versatility in different environments
Torso Designs
Iterated through several torso designs- particularly with branding, and rectangular and circular arches that would span the front and back
Engineering Constraints
I designed within engineering constraints, using a custom torso frame and the OpenArm arm skeleton. This involved camera angle considerations, Lidar placement, custom motor housing, and degree of freedom engineering.
The Runner Ups
Options that I almost pursued for the final design. I moved away from the first, since the hat accessory option was less distinguishable to a competitor, Sunday Robotics' design. The 2nd had a more unique eye shape, but could be read as sad, and was not versatile or professional enough for my purposes.
Physical Shell Prototyping
3d printed shell prototyping around the current v1 skeleton of the robot
Folding In Action
The v1 prototype can consistently fold towels (my role was not involved in the machine learning)
