Tuya Smart unveiled a new home robot—named Doova—developed specifically to provide companionship for older adults living alone. Presented at IFA 2026 in Berlin, the system combines artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, home monitoring, and smart home device control.

Unlike bipedal humanoids designed for physical tasks, Doova moves around the home on wheels. One of its primary objectives is identifying emergency situations; the robot employs LiDAR, an array of four microphones capable of pinpointing the source of sounds, and computer vision algorithms that analyze human body positioning. If a person falls or needs assistance, they can summon the robot using a voice command.

Doova identifies the source of a call, navigates autonomously to the user, and uses its vision system to assess the situation; if the person does not respond within 60 seconds, the robot automatically initiates an emergency procedure, placing a two-way video call to family members or caregivers so they can view the surroundings and decide how to provide assistance. However, Doova was also designed to function as an AI companion.

The system uses a large multimodal language model to hold conversations and interpret visual information; according to Tuya, this enables the robot to help users understand bills and correspondence, identify potential fraud attempts, and explain how to operate various household appliances, as well as provide reminders for medication, appointments, or weather updates. The company states that, over time, the system will be able to learn user preferences and offer suggestions regarding diet, gardening, or clothing.

Tuya did not disclose Doova's price, battery life, or details regarding when and where it will be sold. Nor did it specify whether sensitive information captured by the cameras and microphones would be processed locally or sent to cloud-based systems.