Robots capable of performing human-like tasks have so far been relegated to laboratories, factories, and captivating YouTube demos. But Unitree is readying its G1 humanoid robot for mass production with a $16,000 price tag that somehow feels both expensive and reasonable for a robot that looks this capable, as spotted by New Atlas.
The Unitree G1 is an upgraded and production-ready version of the H1 humanoid bot the Chinese company debuted only a year ago. Powered by an unnamed “8-core high-performance CPU,” the G1 features 23 degrees of freedom through powered joints on its arms, legs, and torso. The robot can jump, walk at a top speed of over 4.4mph, and even climb stairs littered with construction debris. How well it can handle stairs cluttered with random shoes and kids toys remains to be seen.
The stumps on the ends of the H1’s arms have been replaced with three-fingered hands on the G1, which have been demonstrated to be dexterous enough to solder wires, handle delicate objects, and even flip foods in a frying pan. The robot’s LED-adorned head hides a vision system based on a Livox Mid-360 lidar camera and an Intel RealSense D435 depth camera, allowing the G1 to see the world in 3D.
Standing around just 4.3 feet tall, the robot can fold down even smaller for easier transport and storage. However, at a little over 77 pounds with its two-hour 9,000mAh battery pack attached, Unitree’s G1 definitely isn’t lightweight.
Before the debut of its humanoid robots, Unitree was best known for its quadruped robots designed to be similarly capable to Boston Dynamics’ Spot, only much smaller and cheaper. While Spot can be purchased for $74,500, the Unitree Go2 starts at $1,600. Boston Dynamics hasn’t revealed how much its Atlas humanoid robots cost, and while Elon Musk has claimed Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 robot will cost “much less than $20,000,” Unitree’s G1 will potentially be one of the first capable humanoid robots you can bring home.
Unitree hasn’t revealed exactly when the production-ready version of the G1 will actually be available, but when it is, potential customers shouldn’t expect it to stroll into the kitchen and cook breakfast right out of the box. The humanoid is designed to learn through imitation using the company’s Unitree Robot Unified Large Model (UnifoLM), and its initial appeal will be as an affordable humanoid platform for conducting robotics research — not as a real-life version of Rosey the Robot from The Jetsons.
