This type of human robot can do wheels, handstands and round-ups with less than $6,000 in kicks
For less than the fully decorated MacBook Pro, you can buy Unitree’s latest human robot called R1. You only need to sell $5,900 for a robot weighing about 55 pounds, about 4-foot tall, and use large multi-modes to handle complex tasks.
If you’re wondering what will be using R1, your guess is as good as we do. Unitree said its robot is “fully customizable” and demonstrates its features in the video, showing wheels, handstands, boxing, round kicks and downhill runs, but has not provided any examples of practical use yet. The lightweight robot has an ultra-wide view and a quad microwave array that helps it recognize sound and images, but is also built using Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connections. It is not difficult to imagine a world where people program R1 as a robot steward to handle everyday trivia, just like the job Mehta is reportedly doing. But you can even balance the two R1s to fight each other, as evidenced by Unitree’s promotion of a unique battle tournament that feels like a 2011 aesthetically unsatisfactory version Real steel.
The latest R1 is much lower than the entry point of Unitree’s previous humanoid robot G1, which starts at $16,000 and is emeced in CES 2025, with some disastrous results. Even if the R1’s low-priced price tag is arguably high, it’s still much cheaper than other similar options, such as Tesla’s Optimus Bot, which is expected to be purchased for at least $20,000.
