Unitree sells robot dogs for thousands, not tens of thousands

In short: Robot dogs and humanoid robots from China’s Unitree are getting much cheaper, and that is expanding who can buy and study them.

What's going on

A writer at Ars Technica bought a Unitree Go2 Pro robot dog for $4,017 after shipping and tariffs. He walked it two miles to work in Washington, DC, where it drew crowds and could do tricks like “shake hands,” handstands, and jumps. On the hotter, uphill walk home, the robot struggled, showed 5 percent battery, reached an internal temperature reading of 84°C (183°F), and then collapsed near the writer’s front door.

The story argues that the bigger change is price, not perfection. A similar four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics, called Spot, starts around $75,000. A robotics professor at George Mason University told Ars that Unitree helped “democratize” research because labs can now buy these machines more easily.

Unitree’s cost savings come from design choices like reusing the same motors across its legs and using simpler gear systems in its joints (like choosing a simpler set of bike gears). Some experts also told Ars that cheaper parts may wear out faster, but the robots are built to be easier to repair, including swapping a leg quickly.

What to watch

Unitree is also pushing into humanoid robots. Ars says Unitree’s consumer humanoid starts at $13,500, far below past prices. At the same time, US policymakers are moving toward restrictions on Chinese-made robots, including mentions of Unitree, which could limit sales in the United States while the rest of the world continues buying.

Source: Arstechnica