'Not a showpiece'

On a recent morning, a dough-spinning robot churned out savory pancakes for 6.9 yuan ($1.0) each, while a delivery bot shuttled trays of braised pork to a dining area packed with seniors. At the checkout, an AI-powered camera identified dishes on a tray and calculated the bill in under a second.

"None of these machines are just sitting there — every one of them is being used," said Han Xin, the facility's private operator.

"They are not showpieces. They have truly moved from the laboratory into our daily life."

Han said the station's most popular service is the third-floor rehabilitation room, where three massage robots and an AI-guided moxibustion machine are booked solid every day. "I've tried them myself," she said. "The touch is not hard or mechanical — it's very comfortable."

The machines use visual recognition to locate acupoints on the bodies of different shapes and sizes. Qi, a rehabilitation therapist who works at the station, said the robots allow one human therapist to supervise several devices at once.

"For routine health maintenance, the robots are excellent," she said." Our human therapists are fully booked, but a single therapist can operate three or four robots at the same time. The robots don't get tired."

A 71-year-old woman who gave only her surname as Wang was lying facedown while a massage robot's four silicone-tipped arms kneaded her lower back.

Wang, who injured her ankle in a fall three years ago and still struggles with chronic pain, said she prefers the machine's consistency to a human masseur.

"A human feels more casual and natural, but the robot hits one spot very precisely — you really feel it," she said as the mechanical arms worked along her spine. "The doctor set it to the lowest intensity, and it's just right for me."

Wang said she had heard about the station from colleagues and decided to travel across town to try the machines. "I've done six rehab sessions at a hospital, and they were so painful I cried every time," she said. "This is different. It doesn't hurt the same way."