Zappy

Mobility · Presence · Privacy

A trusted housemate that notices things.

Zappy is a privacy-first household awareness robot designed to reduce the mental burden of living alone. It combines mobility, quiet presence, and local AI so your home can notice what matters without becoming a surveillance system.

All data stays locally on the robot, and the app lets you control how much Zappy is allowed to know, remember, and act on.

See the story What people said
Concept rendering of Zappy home robot

Concept rendering · For illustration purposes only.

The story

One person. Three cameras. Still not enough peace of mind.

Inspired by a real response from someone living alone. Their worry wasn't burglars. It was fire, flooding, and the pet waiting at home.

01

The current solution

A door camera. A living room camera. A camera for the dog's crate. Multiple devices, but still the need to constantly check.

02

Zappy's memory

Zappy knows Sarah is away, Bella is home, and the house should be quiet. 

{
  "resident": "away",
  "dog": "home",
  "risk_focus": ["fire", "flooding"],
  "expected_state": "quiet home"
}
03

Calm reassurance

✓ Bella resting
✓ No unusual heat
✓ No leaks detected
✓ Home quiet

Everything looks normal.

The problem

Living alone creates small, persistent worries.

🐈

Pets

Is my cat okay while I am away?

🔥

Appliances

Did I leave something on?

🚰

Water

Did I leave a tap running?

⚡

Power

What if the power goes out?

🚪

Doors

Did I lock up properly?

Community discovery

What people living alone told me.

I collected 30+ early responses from people living alone. Their stories were not about wanting more cameras. They were about wanting reassurance.

Word cloud showing common worries people mentioned about living alone
“I just worry about my cat.”
“It is the taps I worry about.”
“I still ask my neighbour when something happens.”

Zappy to the rescue

Small enough to belong. Smart enough to notice.

👀

Observe

Reads the current state of the home through local sensors and images.

🧠

Remember

Keeps track of events like who left, what changed, and when.

⚖️

Reason

Compares the current state with what should normally be true.

🔔

Notify

Interrupts only when something seems unusual or worth checking.

🔒

Stay private

Designed around local AI, transparent memory, and user control.

See it in action

A first look at Zappy

A short teaser of how Zappy moves through the home, checks on what matters, and stays quiet until something needs your attention.

  • Moves around the home on its own
  • Notices pets, leaks, heat, and open doors
  • Runs its AI locally, on the robot

A home should not feel watched.

It should quietly look after itself.

Team

The people behind Zappy

Zappy is shaped by a multidisciplinary team combining robotics, software development, and applied AI.

Co-founder & Product Lead

Sushmita Singh

Sushmita is a data scientist and machine learning engineer who has built and shipped AI products in industry, specializing in large language models, computer vision, and anomaly detection.

At Zappy she leads product strategy, user research, and business development, translating customer insight into the product roadmap and the company's direction. Her focus is building trustworthy AI that gives people peace of mind while keeping them in control of their data.

GitHub LinkedIn

Co-founder & Embodied AI Lead

Saman Mahdian

Saman is an embodied AI engineer specializing in Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, the kind of AI that lets a robot perceive its surroundings, understand what is asked of it, and act. His expertise spans the full robot learning pipeline, from simulation and data collection to imitation learning and deployment on real hardware.

At Zappy he brings the robotics, AI, and software together, turning research ideas into a robot that can work reliably in a real home.

LinkedIn