Wearing a Headband for 12 Hours of Chores, Author Becomes Robot Trainer

Chinese robotics company Mifeng Technology launched Mifeng Pai, a crowdsourced embodied data collection platform that assigns some data-gathering tasks to ordinary users. After applying for and receiving equipment, participants record actions that naturally occur in daily life and work, such as folding clothes, cooking, sweeping, changing cat litter, sending and receiving packages, and sorting goods. Mifeng officially calls this new role a robot trainer.

The author tested the setup by wearing a MEgo device for 12 hours. During that time, the participant focused on household chores, and after a long day of cleaning, the home looked completely refreshed. Each time a task that needed to be done was completed, a payment was credited to the account.

The trial illustrates how embodied AI companies are turning everyday labor into paid data collection. By distributing devices through a crowdsourcing platform, Mifeng can gather diverse real-world motion data at scale. For participants, the model offers income from ordinary chores; for robotics firms, it provides training data needed to improve embodied systems.