On April 1, at the 2026 Shanghai CCE International Cleaning Technology and Equipment Expo, Saite Intelligent officially released the company's strategic new product – Jingjie S1 driverless sweeper.
This product, which sells for less than 100,000 yuan and rents for only 2,999 yuan per month, is like a stone thrown into a calm lake, causing huge ripples in the hundreds of billions of smart cleaning markets.
For a long time, unmanned sanitation cleaning robots have been difficult to popularize due to their high price (generally between 200,000 and 500,000 yuan), and have been regarded as a "rare thing" for high-end niches.
Saite Intelligence’s move aims to break this deadlock.
Li Rui, founder and chairman of the company, emphasized to Observer.com that this is not a simple price war. "We hope that the industry will return to normal business logic – truly creating value for society rather than watching or showing off skills." The current industry penetration rate is very low, largely due to high costs that lead to too long decision-making cycles. "If the market wants to grow, it needs a product that allows users to make 'brainless decisions.'"
"Professional people do professional things"
Public information shows that Saite Intelligence was established in October 2017 and has focused on algorithm development and technological innovation of driverless robots since its inception. As a pioneer in the industry, Li Rui fully understands the importance of specializing in the art industry.
He clearly drew Seth's boundaries: "We only make brooms."
In the field of unmanned cleaning, some companies have indeed chosen to invest heavily in sanitation service operations, trying to compete head-on with traditional giants.
But in Li Rui's view, this path actually falls into the "trap of tactical diligence."
Although the sanitation service market is huge, it is unrealistic to expect robots to replace all manual links. Even if the penetration rate reaches 30%, it is not easy. “If you waste your energy on the 70% of basic operations that still require manpower and are difficult to scale, you will dilute your focus on the core technology of autonomous driving.”
Therefore, Saite Intelligence has firmly chosen the role of enabler, providing efficient and reliable smart cleaning tools to partners with channels and government resources, such as urban service companies such as Infore Environment and property companies such as Vanke.
"Professional people do professional things, and society needs division of labor at any time. Only by being more professional can I create more value for users and the entire society at a lower cost," Li Rui said.
This focused strategy has allowed Seth to establish cooperative relationships with most environmental sanitation companies in the industry, rather than becoming their opponent.
“It’s not about grabbing jobs, it’s about creating new, more decent jobs.”
The emergence of unmanned sweepers is often interpreted by the outside world as a "threat" to frontline sanitation workers.
Li Rui has a completely different view on this: autonomous vehicles are not meant to destroy the jobs of cleaners, but to empower and reduce the burden on the entire industry and create new jobs with more technical content and more dignity.
“The average age of frontline sanitation workers across the country is over 50 years old, and young people are simply unwilling to do this hard, undignified, low-paying, and inflexible job,” Li Rui pointed out. “This industry has been severely disrupted.”
The introduction of unmanned sweepers precisely solves this pain point.
It takes over the dirtiest and most tiring outdoor cleaning work, and the original sanitation workers can be transformed into "sanitation engineers", responsible for the daily maintenance, scheduling and management of equipment.
"Now there are some young people who are unemployed at home. They are unwilling to be sanitation workers, but they are absolutely willing to undergo simple training to maintain these machines and equipment and become engineers." Li Rui said with a smile, "From the perspective of employment rate and long-term impact, unmanned sanitation vehicles are actually one of the solutions to the problem of industry outage and declining employment rate."
He further explained that an S1 can not only effectively replace the workload of two cleaning workers, but also allow the property company to completely get rid of a series of hidden costs and risks such as workers' compensation and personnel management.
This is also one of the core factors why Saite Smart launched the leasing model: "The monthly rent is less than 3,000 yuan. If it breaks, we will be responsible for repairing it. New machines can be replaced seamlessly, and the machine will not be lazy, nor will it bring huge advance pressure to the company due to accidents (each machine has corresponding insurance). This creates real value for the service provider, and it is easy to calculate this account."
