Reliable
Physics, not technique. Automated output is consistent and unaffected by operator variability — the same programmed sequence and exposure times in every room, every time.
Facility
operations.
In high-risk environments, the cost of a missed surface is measured in outcomes. Keeping these facilities clean and disinfected falls on staff already stretched thin. Turnover is high, shifts run lean, and teams cover more ground in less time as the standard gets stricter.
In busy facilities,
manual protocols leave gaps.
Manual protocols set the bar, but their limits mean the gaps rarely close on their own. Shared surfaces are everywhere and often hard to reach, while cleaning and disinfection techniques vary by person and shift. Rooms are needed back fast, so any added step competes with the schedule and gets skipped. Human error is a property of manual work under time pressure, not a training gap. What’s missed stays on the surface until the next clean.
Missed spots
Inconsistent cleaning and disinfection practices can lead to errors or missed spots.
Resistant pathogens
Some pathogens are highly resistant to standard disinfectants.
Persistent contamination
Pathogens left behind can survive on surfaces for days to months.
UV-C closes the gap in
environmental disinfection.
Germicidal UV-C at 254 nm is not new. Water treatment, air handling, laboratories, and pharmaceutical cleanrooms have relied on it for decades as a physical, chemical-free disinfection step. What has changed is how it reaches the spaces where risk is highest. That is why facility teams are adding UV-C to their disinfection programs.
Documented
Automated reporting turns every cycle into an audit-ready record of what was treated, when, and for how long.
Seamless
Runs on a schedule or on demand once a room is empty, without staff repositioning it, so throughput never waits.
Safe
Human presence detection pauses UV-C when someone enters the room.
Measured reductions
in an autonomous cycle.
A third-party laboratory evaluated the A1 against seven microorganisms on stainless-steel test surfaces in a furnished room of approximately 250 ft². The A1 completed the cycle in under 10 minutes, autonomously. Test locations included horizontal and vertical surfaces.
>99.9%
Reduction of C. difficile spores at every tested location
>99.99%
Reduction of MRSA at every tested location
Our team will contact you to discuss the findings and provide the reports.
Start it once.
Your team moves on.
A worker pushes a stationary UV-C device to each of seven positions in a furnished room and an adjoining space. At each one they run the power cord to a wall outlet, leave the room while the cycle runs, and come back to move the device on. Before the fourth position they unplug it and use an outlet on the back wall. Cyan light illustrates proximity and line of sight; it is not a measured dose map. The device, robot and room are schematic.
Used properly, a stationary device turns one room into a series of trips. Someone wheels it to the first position, runs the cord to an outlet and steps out while the cycle runs. Then they come back to move it, and again for every position after that, re-plugging whenever the cord won’t reach.
The A1 runs the room’s saved program on its own. It drives to each position in sequence, applies the exposure set for that position, and moves on. Once the cycle starts, nobody needs to stay with it, so your team is free to get on with other critical work, like preparing and cleaning the next room.
The A1 adds UV-C to your protocol without adding to your team’s workload.
Common misconceptions
about UV-C in high-risk facilities.
Ninety days. One unit.
Three misconceptions dismantled.
Most objections to UV-C in high-risk facilities were earned by stationary devices. They are objections to the workflow, not the wavelength. A high-risk facility ran a single A1 across various room types, completing 864 autonomous disinfection tasks — 275.7 hours of active runtime across 87 of 90 days, averaging 3.06 hours a day. Six months after implementation it was already routine — running during off-hours, at roughly a third of the unit’s daily capacity. Below are the three misconceptions that deployment dismantled.
“Staff won’t adopt another step.”
Stationary devices come with a process: wheel it in, find an outlet, position it, program the cycle, clear the room, wait, reposition, repeat. Every added step is a reason for a short-staffed shift to skip it — and a protocol that gets skipped never becomes routine.
It became the routine.
In use on 87 of 90 days, six months after implementation. All 510 cycles in the 500 ft² rooms ran in that unit’s off-hours, beginning between 9:32 PM and 4:46 AM; a typical night’s block started at 10:21 PM and covered seven of the unit’s eight rooms by 2:46 AM. One month after the period closed, the facility added two more units to complete its fleet.
510
Cycles in the 500 ft² rooms ran during “off-hours”
+2
Units added April 2024
“It adds time the shift doesn’t have.”
With a stationary unit, every disinfection position is a trip in and out of the room. Coverage and labor grow together — so larger rooms get fewer positions, or none.
Coverage scaled. The workload didn’t.
Task length followed room size, not staff availability. A 500 ft² room ran close to twice as long as a 275 ft² room because it required more disinfection points — yet what the program asked of staff stayed constant: start the task, collect the unit.
23.8 min
500 ft², n=510
12.5 min
250–275 ft², n=343
Mean task duration, 853 completed tasks (98.7% of qualifying tasks). Categories with too few observations excluded.
“Staff have to babysit the device.”
Manual repositioning keeps an operator tethered to the room: walk in, move, walk out, wait, repeat. That standby time is the silent cost of the program.
Two touches. Three points or eleven.
The A1 made every transition between disinfection points on its own. Recreating the same programs with a stationary device would require two repositionings for the 275 ft² room and ten for the 500 ft² room — each one a trip back into the room.
275 ft² · Use-Map · 3 points
The A1 robot
13 min 56 s
Stationary device
~18 min
500 ft² · AI Auto Explore · 11 points
The A1 robot
19 min 43 s
Stationary device
~41 min
A1 total cycleUV-C emissionStaff repositioning
Stationary times are estimates from anecdotal accounts of manual use: repositioning, locating an outlet, powering on, re-setting the task. Room preparation time excluded.
The Result: FTE hours
returned to the team.
Every minute the A1 spends on a task is a minute your team can spend on other high-priority work throughout the facility.
1,118
Projected annual staff hours reclaimed
“The A1 has been a great
addition to our team!”
Questions
from facility
teams.
Does UV-C replace cleaning?
No. Cleaning is a separate, prior step and stays in the procedure. UV-C does not remove soil, dust or residue, and material left on a surface can shield what is underneath it from the light. The working order is: clean and disinfect the room as your procedures require, then run the UV-C cycle as an additional pass over surfaces that pass may have missed. Read more: Making UV-C work with your cleaning routine.
Is it safe to run with people in the building?
People can stay in the building during a cycle, but no one may be in the room where the A1 is running. UV-C exposure can injure the eyes and skin, so the treated space must be unoccupied with controlled access for the whole cycle. Because of this, the A1 is equipped with motion sensors and a smart safety sign, and either one pauses disinfection when triggered. Read more: Built-in safety sensors.
What happens to surfaces the light cannot reach?
They are not treated. UV-C is line-of-sight: it disinfects surfaces the light directly reaches, and the energy delivered drops as distance increases and as surfaces angle away from the source. Undersides, interiors, and anything behind furniture or equipment stay shadowed. Treating from several positions rather than one reduces how much stays in shadow, which is why the A1 is fully autonomous and navigates to multiple areas within a room for comprehensive coverage. Read more: UV-C dose and exposure.
How long does it take to disinfect a room, and how many rooms can be disinfected on a single charge?
The A1 can disinfect a 250 ft² room in ~13 minutes when targeting 4-log reduction (99.99%) of C. diff, and up to roughly 36 rooms on a charge, with about 8 hours of runtime. Total disinfection times vary based on room size, point count, target organism and reduction goal. Read more: A1 specifications.
Talk to TGR with a floor plan and get an estimate for your own rooms.
How is this different from a stationary UV-C unit?
A stationary unit has to be manually moved around the room in between cycles for repositioning while the A1 makes every transition between points itself. Read more: Common misconceptions about UV-C.
What record does each cycle produce, and what does that record prove?
ADIS, the A1’s Autonomous Deployment Information System, is included with every purchase at no extra cost. The platform records operating time and cycle completion by area, robot, operating mode and operator. Reports can be generated and exported on demand while monthly summaries are shared via email. Read more: ADIS fleet reporting.
What is included when a unit is delivered, and what support comes after?
Delivery includes an implementation plan, on-site setup by our Customer Experience team and up to 16 hours of on-site training with options to extend. After that, support tickets are resolved within one business day and loaner units are deployed within two. Each A1 is backed by five years of coverage: one free year of limited warranty, followed by four years of extended coverage. Read more: Support and ownership.
Contact customer support for an existing unit, or talk to TGR before a purchase.