Aiala is a robotic walker for older people who live at home and walk with support. We are building it to drive itself to the bed on request, support every step, and let the family know when something is wrong.
An older person living alone needs two things: something to lean on right where they are, and a way for the family to learn in time that help is needed. Today these are separate products — and neither comes to the person by itself.
A walker helps only when it is within reach — by the bed at night, after getting up from a chair. A walker standing in another room is no support at all.
A home camera or a phone does not raise the alarm by itself — the person has to reach the phone. Our CEO knows this from caring for a family member with limited mobility.
older people worldwide cannot meet their basic daily needs without help
WHO, Decade of Healthy Ageing baseline report
people aged 60+ in Kazakhstan at the start of 2026, 1.89M of them in cities
Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan
people aged 60+ in China at the end of 2025 — 23.0% of the population
National Bureau of Statistics of China
These numbers describe the need for care, not the number of Aiala buyers.
For parents who walk with support. Bought by their adult children. Target width about 60 cm, so it passes through a 70 cm doorway.
Target retail price: $2,990 (estimate). All functions above are planned; none is claimed as working until it is shown on the prototype.
The prototype is built from proven, off-the-shelf components, so that engineering time goes into the hard parts: getting to the bed through a real apartment, and a safety chain that does not depend on software.
A separate watchdog microcontroller keeps the drive powered only while the main computer is alive and the emergency button is not pressed. If the computer hangs, the button is pressed or the battery runs low, the drive loses power. The rollator's mechanical hand brakes always stay as a second brake. Rule we hold ourselves to: no autonomous approach to a person until a brake that holds the walker with the computer dead is proven on the bench.
Privacy by design: the camera in the bedroom and the call buttons are separate choices. A family can switch the camera off and still have the buttons.
We move from concept to hardware fast, and we write down what works and what does not yet.
Every component of the autonomous kit selected and costed, including the safety chain, with the source of each price recorded.
Four products closest to Aiala analysed from their own pages, plus ready-made electric rollator chassis and autonomy modules that could serve as a production base.
A donor drive kit bought locally, modified and mounted. The platform drives on its front wheels.
Steering parts are in hand and go on the frame next. Then the watchdog, emergency stop and an unpowered parking brake: the current drive has none, so the rollator's hand brakes are its only unpowered brake for now.
target retail price (estimate)
Device sold to the family. A service for relatives as a subscription is a hypothesis we will price after the pilot.
What moves the cost: component choice and volume, not the assembly location. Our analysis of contract assembly for 50–100 units shows that a factory alone does not make the walker cheaper.
Nobody we found combines walking support, driving to the person through the apartment and alerting the family in one device. That combination is our hypothesis to prove on the prototype — not yet an advantage we claim.
| Product | Walking support | Comes to the person | Alerts the family | Price / status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary rollator | Yes | No | No | 17,500–49,600 ₸ in Kazakhstan |
| Rollz Motion Electric | Yes, plus a powered seated mode | No | No | $3,990, on sale, US |
| Nobi | No — a ceiling lamp | No | Yes, on falls | On request; subscriptions via resellers |
| Camino One | Yes, with automatic braking | No | Not a main function | $2,999 list, waitlist |
| CTI One W102 SA | Yes | Yes, on a straight path up to 3.7 m | Not stated | $4,199, US |
| Aiala | Yes | Yes, through the apartment to the bed — planned | Yes — planned | $2,990 estimate, prototype stage |
Competitor information from their own websites, checked 12–14 October 2026. Aiala's row shows planned functions.
LEA, a robotic rollator from Delft, raised €5M in 2016 and went bankrupt in 2020. Camino, founded in 2019, still sells a waitlist in October 2026 while its clinical trials are being planned. Hardware for older people takes longer than one funding round.
We start from a serial rollator frame and add our module instead of designing a frame from scratch. We keep the first intended use narrow — no lifting and no clinical claims — and put the device in front of paying families as early as safety allows.
The buyer is an adult child who leaves a parent at home and is afraid to learn too late that help was needed. The user is the parent who still walks with support. People who cannot walk are not the users of the first build.
SAM, Kazakhstan scenario
40,000 families × $2,990
SOM
700 devices over 3 years × $2,990
people aged 60+ in Almaty (328,385) and Astana (171,138), the two largest cities
Bureau of National Statistics, start of 2026
SAM and SOM are assumptions of our model; demand is not yet validated. Validating it is what the pilot is for.
Rehabilitation centres that work with patients who walk with support, and home-care services. First supervised demonstrations, then paid pilots.
How often Aiala is called. Missed events and false alarms — counted, not described. Whether families are willing to pay.
We ask about the last real evening when help came late — what was in the apartment and who called — not whether someone "would buy a robot".
We prototype in Astana from off-the-shelf parts. For production we are looking at the Chinese hardware ecosystem, where all of our shortlisted production chassis come from.
Status: shortlisted, no supplier contracts yet.
We name our risks early and design the order of work around them: operator control first, then autonomy; bench tests first, then supervised trials with people.
ISO 11199-2 covers rollators, but a walker that drives itself is no longer only a rollator. Before any autonomous driving next to a person we work through ISO 13482 — safety requirements for personal care robots.
In the Eurasian Economic Union a medical device must be registered before it is placed on the market; its class (1, 2a, 2b or 3) follows EEC Board Decision No. 173. Aiala's class is not yet assigned, and we will not sell it as a medical device before registration.
| Risk | How we handle it |
|---|---|
| The walker stops abruptly while the person is walking, for example if the computer hangs | Hand sensors on the handles and a smooth stop by the drive before power is cut; the design goes to a safety engineer for review before trials with people |
| No brake that holds without power in the current drive | Rollator hand brakes stay as the mechanical brake; no autonomous approach until an unpowered brake is proven |
| Families may not pay $2,990 | Interviews about past incidents, supervised demonstrations, then paid pilots that measure willingness to pay |
| False alarms and missed falls erode trust | Both are pilot metrics with a written log |
| Weight: the full prototype kit is estimated at about 25 kg | A lighter production chassis and the compute module on our own board |
| Component prices move | An alternative compute platform compared for the production version |
| A camera at home is a privacy concern | Separate consent for the camera; the call buttons work without it |
Aiala is the first project of ORB Robotics, a Physical AI company from Kazakhstan. Between us: product and demand, perception and autonomy, robotics and manufacturing.
Olzhas Beilov
CEO
Roman Shchedrin
CTO
Yerbolat Kuanyshev
Head of Robotics
Next to join: a safety engineer for mechanical design and a rehabilitation specialist for trials with people.
Support to build the first working prototype. A care or rehabilitation partner for supervised trials. Manufacturing partners for the chassis and drive.
ORB Robotics