Relay: a delivery robot that moved from hotel corridors to hospitals

Relay is a delivery robot that brings items to hotel rooms. It started in a hotel in 2014, learned to ride elevators on its own, and later moved into hospitals.

A robot that comes to the hotel room door

Relay is a delivery robot from Savioke, founded by former Willow Garage CEO Steve Cousins. It started work in August 2014 at the Aloft hotel in Cupertino under the name Botlr. Staff put a toothbrush or towels in its bin, and the robot carries them down the corridor to the room door. It stands 92 cm tall and finds its way with lidar, cameras and sonar. The hotel said in a press release that it cut room service time by up to 80%, but that was not an independent study.

Guests who didn’t talk to it

In 2016 Jake Knapp of Google Ventures published a design sprint run with Savioke. It tested the robot’s screen face, its sounds and a short dance after each delivery. Guests were delighted, but none tried to talk to the robot. Cousins said: “We’re all spoiled by C-3PO and WALL-E. Our robot just isn’t that sophisticated.” The aim was to avoid raising expectations beyond what the robot could do.

Elevators and hospitals

In December 2021 the company launched Relay+, which rides elevators by itself, and said it had made more than 850,000 deliveries since 2014. In May 2022 it renamed itself Relay Robotics and raised $10 million. Deliveries had passed one million by then, and hospitals at Georgetown and Dartmouth were among its customers. In 2023 it launched RelayRx for hospitals.

A design that kept expectations low lasted

Relay did not converse; it focused on one job, carrying things. Moving from hotels to hospitals meant doing the same job in different buildings. We could not find fleet size or delivery counts after 2023 in public sources.

What must a robot leave out so it doesn’t promise more than it can do?

What we haven’t confirmed