When people dreamed of a future with robots, most of us probably envisioned having our very own R2-D2 beeping and booping alongside us to help with various tasks we encounter throughout the day. It’s a cute image. Humanoid robots, on the other hand, feel a lot creepier. However, it’s looking more and more like humanoids are exactly what we’re getting in our robot-infested future and this Unitree R1 brings that reality even closer.
How? Well, it’s very affordable for what it’s bringing to the table. For instance, it’s less than half of the price of other options in the market, while being able to perform relatively complex tasks. Seriously, they show it doing cartwheels, handstands, kickboxing, and more, even being unveiled with the tag line “born for sport.” We’re not sure what useful things it can actually do for you, but it does make for a pretty cool toy.
The Unitree R1 is a humanoid robot standing at 51.2 inches tall (130 cm), allowing it to resemble a small human while it goes about its tasks. The robot’s quite lightweight at just 55 pounds, so you can pick it up and carry it if the battery ever drains out, while a total of 26 joints allow it to execute all sorts of complex movements. It’s similar to the kind of humanoid robots currently employed for repetitive and high-precision tasks on the assembly line
As with many similar robots, you should be able to program it to perform a variety of assembly line tasks, allowing it to be used for carrying out all sorts of repetitive tasks and jobs that require high levels of precision. According to the outfit, it’s aimed at research teams and developers who want to experiment with humanoid functions, which means it won’t have a lot of use-cases that normal people are likely to find useful. Suffice to say, though, bringing costs down this low means it’s not out of the realm of many hobbyists who might come up with some clever stuff for this robot to do.
The Unitree R1 is equipped with a binocular camera, which it uses to see the world around it, as well as a four-mic array for picking up sounds in its surroundings. It comes with dual 3W speakers to enable verbal communication, while an eight-core system on a chip provides the needed computing power. The battery is mounted on the left side of the torso, with a quick release design, so you can simply swap in a fresh cell whenever power drains out, with a freshly-charged module able to keep it running for one hour straight. It comes with both Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
While it has human-like hands, they appear to fixed in a balled-up fist, so it can’t quite carry out tasks that will require finger dexterity. There also aren’t any details on the kinds of payloads it can carry, but it’s definitely one of the most interesting humanoid robots available today, even if only for its affordability.
How affordable is it? The Unitree R1 is priced starting at just $5,900.
