By Teresa Bouza

San Francisco, Aug 31 (EFE).– It’s called Relay and it’s the latest server at a number of Silicon Valley hotels, which use the diminutive robot to take toothpaste, towels and other supplies to the guests in their rooms.

“We have our robots deployed at the Aloft Cupertino hotel, the Aloft Silicon Valley, the Crowne Plaza Milpitas and the Holiday Inn Express Redwood City,” Adrian Canoso, cofounder of the Savioke company, said in an interview with EFE.

Savioke developed the compact robot that stands just 90 centimeters (just shy of 1 foot) tall.

Canoso said that Relay’s “strong point” is its ability to “navigate complex environments,” which means it can get around the hotel lobby, go upstairs in an elevator and proceed down the corridors without crashing into hotel guests, suitcases or anything else.

Relay’s work begins when a guest calls the front desk to ask for room service.

At that moment, the receptionist opens the compartment on the front of the robot, fills it with the things the guest has requested and types in the room number.

Relay, which activates the elevator button by remote control, phones the room upon arrival. The back lid of the compartment opens immediately when the guest comes to the door to take the objects being delivered.

Once the job is completed, Relay posts a question on its rear screen asking the guest whether he or she is pleased with the service, then blinks its eyes and does a little dance to electronic notes when the guest pushes the button expressing 5-star satisfaction.

The robots, which debuted in the hotel industry less than a year ago, have made 5,000 room service calls during that time while traveling more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

Canoso and his team intentionally chose not to make Relay a humanoid, as robots that look like humans are known.

“When a robot looks like a person, we expect more of it. We tend to think it is super intelligent and that it can talk, among a lot of other things,” Canoso said. EFE