This year, the concept of "AI + elderly care" has moved from policy planning to industrial development and real-world testing. A pilot project has been launched to pair smart elderly care service robots with specific application scenarios. Multiple regions are establishing silver economy labs, supply-demand matching platforms, and smart elderly care scenarios. Tech companies are also pushing various intelligent devices and robots for dining, nursing, companionship, and rehabilitation into communities, nursing homes, and households.
To explore the current state of "AI + elderly care," a reporter recently visited the Tianhuayuan Yili Community Elderly Care Service Station in the Ronghua Street area of Beijing's Yizhuang. This is the first smart health and elderly care robot service station in China, which has been operating for nearly four months since its launch in March. To date, it has deployed over 60 robot products from more than 30 brands, covering real-world scenarios such as dining, health screening, rehabilitation therapy, entertainment companionship, and home care. Here, one can glimpse the latest progress and a demonstration model of "tech-enabled elderly care."
Han Xin, head of the Ronghua Street smart health and elderly care robot service station's operations, explained that the area has a permanent elderly population of about 14,300, accounting for over 32% of the total population. The station operates on a long-term model of "government guidance, enterprise participation, and resident supervision." It serves tens of thousands of residents in the area and acts as a platform for testing real-world applications of robot technology, helping to drive product iteration and standard setting.
What Can Robots Do?
At the start of the visit, a "pancake robot" was spotted outside the ground-floor community canteen. A mung bean pancake costs 6–7 yuan. Resident Ms. Wu and her husband skillfully operated the screen to order two pancakes for breakfast. Inside the canteen, a robot dressed as a chef was shaving noodles on-site, quickly producing a bowl of tomato and shaved noodles for 10 yuan. In the open kitchen, a "cooking robot" was also visible. Staff explained that after a chef prepares ingredients and seasonings, the machine handles the standardized stir-frying, easing meal preparation pressure. However, complex dishes like braised or stewed items still require human effort.
Intelligence is also integrated into the canteen's ordering, tray pickup, payment, and food sampling processes. Residents can check meal options for the day on smart terminals. After registering basic information and health status with consent, the system can alert users with conditions like high blood sugar or high blood pressure about food restrictions. In conversations with several elderly diners, it was clear the canteen greatly facilitates their lives. Many visit daily for meals or takeout, showing high frequency. When asked about the smart devices, some expressed novelty, while others said they still prefer human service.
Beyond dining, on the third floor of the service center, a welcome robot introduced the station's facilities and zones. Several humanoid and quadruped robots performed for entertainment and interaction. A chess robot kept seniors company for games, moxibustion and massage robots provided nursing care, and exoskeleton robots attracted many seniors to try them on. Han Xin noted that the station initially introduced just one product, but as demand grew, it expanded to six, catering to needs like rehabilitation for stroke patients, assistance for those with limited knee or ankle movement, and support for daily walking and stair climbing.
In the health screening room, the station features facial and eye health screening devices, along with a smart blood pressure monitor. The third floor also includes a day-care scenario: an intelligent incontinence care device uses a wearable sensor to detect excretion, then removes waste, cleans with warm water, and dries with warm air. A portable smart bathing device assists with bathing, covering seniors with mobility issues or those who are bedridden.
On the fourth floor, a model room for aging-friendly renovations is showcased. Han Xin emphasized that "aging-friendly design isn't about installing handrails everywhere; it's reflected in every detail." Here, a rotating dining chair helps seniors avoid straining to push back the chair. A concave table supports elbows and provides leverage for standing up. A pull-down storage rack reduces the risk of reaching for high items. Non-imaging devices like millimeter-wave radar monitor for falls without overly intruding on privacy.
Han Xin reported that since its launch in late March, the station has been well-received by local residents. Delegations from other districts in Beijing, other provinces, and even foreign companies or organizations have visited to learn from it. Looking ahead, Han Xin said the station will continue to introduce new products and services. Upcoming plans include summer events and rooftop garden activities, taking robot service fairs to more communities, while also improving access, liability, and safety mechanisms. There are also plans to replicate a second "model" in other parts of Ronghua Street.
How Far from Real Caregiving?
It's important to note that the smart devices and robots "on duty" at the station may not match the public's image of a humanoid robot providing round-the-clock care. Here, "robot" is used in a broader sense. For example, the shaved noodle robot is essentially a catering automation device; the pancake robot takes the form of a robotic arm; the exoskeleton is a wearable walking and rehabilitation aid; and the massage and moxibustion robots are specialized tools for specific body parts and processes. Even the welcome or companion robots, which resemble humans more closely, currently handle tasks like guiding, displaying, simple conversation, and entertainment interaction.
Han Xin admitted, "Robots in current elderly care facilities cannot replace human workers." She explained that elderly care involves many personalized needs. Each senior and family has different living environments, physical conditions, and habits. Caring for the elderly is a low-error-tolerance task. Current AI mainly handles standardized, procedural operations. If a robot encounters a safety issue during service, it cannot independently respond; it still requires human supervision. "Technology primarily plays a supporting role; the core of elderly care remains human," Han Xin said.
In fact, in conversations with several seniors, most reported that their most-used services include the community canteen, free haircuts, and professional massages—services still predominantly led by humans. Notably, seniors are not a uniform group with identical needs. For healthy, active seniors, current robots and smart devices already offer chess games, guided tours, health screening, and exercise training. For those with mobility issues or in post-surgery recovery, exoskeletons, nursing beds, and rehabilitation equipment assist with walking, standing, and transferring. For semi-disabled or fully disabled seniors, needs for bathing assistance, incontinence care, and fall monitoring become more urgent.
However, the more complex a senior's condition, the higher the risks devices face. A mistake by an entertainment robot in a chess game has limited impact. But for physical contact like massage, walking assistance, transfer, or bathing, a single recognition error or equipment failure could cause harm. Currently, most products address only one specific task and cannot autonomously switch between companionship, rehabilitation, safety monitoring, and daily care based on a senior's changing physical and emotional state.
Furthermore, for robots to enter nursing homes, communities, and homes, hurdles like pricing, access standards, data privacy, and effectiveness evaluation must be cleared. Questions remain: Which products can directly serve seniors, and which must be operated by professionals? Can health screening results be used for medical diagnosis? Who manages facial, health, and home behavior data? How are responsibilities divided among enterprises, operators, and users in case of failure? These issues need further clarification.
Han Xin said the station feeds issues discovered during real-world use by seniors and staff back to R&D institutions and manufacturers, driving product iteration. According to public information, the station's smart health robot partners include companies like Yizhuang Robot, Haier, BOE Health, Deyi Robot, Liangliang Vision, Dahu Zhiyuan, Tianxing Medical, Orion Star, Beijing Daai Robot, and Zuowei Technology.
During the visit, Han Xin repeatedly stressed not putting the cart before the horse, emphasizing the human core. The focus of tech-enabled elderly care is not about showcasing many flashy robots but about segmenting different elderly groups—active, self-sufficient, semi-disabled, fully disabled, and cognitively impaired—and deeply identifying their real pain points in social companionship, rehabilitation and walking, safety monitoring, and daily care. Then, technology should be transformed into safe, easy-to-use, and affordable products. At this stage, robots can already "lend a hand" in some tasks, but there is still a long way to go before they can continuously understand seniors' needs and independently take on caregiving responsibilities.
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