The race to put a humanoid robot in each house accelerates, and the $ 5,900 UNIDE R1 robot may well sprint at the front of the peloton.
On Friday, Uniree unveiled the android the size of a pint but “powerful” with a new YouTube video, then followed with more details on an official product page on their website.
In the video, the intelligent companion UNired R1 highlights his remarkable movement skills, which include carts, hands, boxing, kickboxing movements and even race on a hill.
The robot is equipped with a binocular vision supported by image of image and vocal identification LLM. None of this, however, was exposed in the video, which focused on the movement. In fact, there is a brief message at the end of the clip which says: “Movement first, the tasks (a diversity of movement is the foundation of the realization of the tasks)”.
UniLee is well known for producing versatile humanoid robots. I have seen some in person, including the tiny but agile G1 and the larger and slightly more scary H1. G1 lists $ 16,000 and the H1 lists $ 90,000. The price of less than $ 6,000 is unknown for the united and humanoid offers in general. Figure 02 of Figure AI, for example, will probably be listed for more than $ 30,000.
As for what $ 5,900 could bring you, the R1 measures approximately four feet high and weighs approximately 55 pounds, so it is the size of a child. It presents the aforementioned binocular camera, a network of 4 microphones, speakers, an 8-core processor and a GPU (no word on silicon, but UNIDE has associated with NVIDIA), 26 joints and hands that seem to be permanently fixed in the fists. There is a removable battery that promises an hour of activity.
To watch
However, there are some important warnings to consider. Unitree warns that the final robot may be different from what is currently exposed. At the bottom of the product page are more disastrous (and often confusing) warnings, in particular:
“Currently, the global humanoid robot industry is at the first stages of exploration. It is strongly advised individual users to fully understand the limits of humanoid robots before making a purchase.”
And
“The humanoid robot has a complex structure and extremely powerful power. Users are invited to keep a sufficient safety distance between the humanoid robot and the humanoid robot. Please use with caution.”
Thus, although unit R1 can be presented as a robot at home, it is hardly ready to be at the home of anyone.
The level of intelligence and autonomy of the R1, despite the integrated AI, remains a mystery. Most of the united robots that I attended the CES were either controlled remotely, or by a set of previously scripted movements. To be useful in any house, they must marry all the sensors with conscience and enough intelligence to help and not to harm their human owners.
However, less than $ 6,000 for a robot with these announced skills is a breakthrough of humanoid robotics. I wonder if we can get one in the laboratories.
