Lio: a mobile robot with an arm that runs errands in care homes

A collaborative arm on a mobile base

Lio is a care-facility robot from F&P Robotics, founded near Zurich in 2014 by Hansruedi Früh. The company has roots in AI labs at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich and also makes the P-Rob robot arm and P-Grip gripper. Lio was developed in 2017. It carries a 6-axis collaborative arm on a mobile base under soft artificial-leather covers. It weighs 75 kg and stands up to 162 cm tall. It has two cameras and a tablet, and speaks English and German.

From seven institutions to dozens of robots

Lio delivers mail and lab samples, gives reminders, opens doors and hands over objects. During COVID-19, UV-C disinfection and temperature screening were added. A 2017 master’s thesis study tested it in two care facilities in Thurgau, Switzerland, and by 2020 it was in use at seven health and care institutions in Germany and Switzerland. The PUR project, involving Austria’s FHV, tested Lio for 22 months in care facilities in Konstanz, Germany and Schaffhausen, Switzerland. In 2024 the Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported that dozens of Lios were working in Swiss care homes and clinics, while describing it as still in a pilot phase. No price has been published.

Errands for nurses, and conversations like a quiz

As of 2024, a Lio had been running errands for nurses and reception at the Zihlschlacht rehabilitation clinic in Thurgau for four years. The PUR project concluded that it had found numerous challenges, but also opportunities. In early tests, users found the robot frightening or uncanny when its head was at or above their own head height. In a 2025 University of Zurich citizen-science test, the robot kept asking questions, and the conversation felt more like a quiz than listening. Still, Ursula, an 82-year-old participant, said: “I find a conversation with him more pleasant than with a person who doesn’t understand me.”

A robot that found its place in errands rather than talk

Lio has conversation and entertainment functions, but in the clinic SRF visited its main job was running errands. The finding that its head height could frighten users also showed up as a design problem. It is worth comparing with Moxi, which handles hospital logistics.

How do this robot’s size and height look from the eye level of the person being cared for?

What we haven’t confirmed

• How many Lio robots have been sold or deployed, and the price
• Whether it is sold as a regular product beyond the pilot phase (a 2020 paper said most were sold as products, while a 2024 report described a pilot phase)
• The detailed results of the PUR project
• The current product information on the company site