🤖 Unitree Rentals Just Got Dirt Cheap
Good Morning, Roboticists!
You can rent a humanoid for less than a nice dinner. Just remember to budget for the humans keeping it alive.
Unitree Rentals Just Got Dirt Cheap
TL;DR: Chinese marketplace listings now advertise Unitree humanoid rentals from ¥289 per day, after five-figure rates in early 2025 and ¥2,000-3,000 early this year. But the sticker price can omit transport, setup, engineering support, and operators. At AGIBOT's Chimelong deployment, the reported ratio is roughly three robots per operator, underscoring why a cheaper robot is not necessarily a cheaper service. Read more →
142 Folds Put Laundry On Notice
TL;DR: MindOn's Mind-1 dual-arm folding station completed an hour-long video with a counter reaching 142 garments, or roughly one item every 25 seconds. The company calls it the industry's fastest robotic clothes folding, though the video does not establish comparisons across garment types, fold quality, or the wider laundry workflow. It turns a quick demo into a measurable throughput claim. Read more →
XPENG Sets Europe’s Humanoid Clock
TL;DR: At the Paris Motor Show, XPENG set a late-2026 mass-production target for its IRON humanoid, first H1 2027 deliveries, and a European rollout in the second half of 2027. President Brian Gu says robots should begin assisting staff and greeting visitors at its Guangzhou headquarters early next year. The plans still leave the launch countries, price, and sales model unspecified. Read more →
Robotera Wins Where Factories Don’t
TL;DR: Robotera's VPP2 topped RoboDojo-Sim with a 39.26 score and 32.26% task success, narrowly ahead of PhysicalRSI on both overall measures. Its world-action model predicts a future visual state before selecting robot actions, and the team released code and checkpoints. Yet open-ended success was only 4.08%, a reminder that a leaderboard lead is not a deployment claim. Read more →
Robots Finally Get A Memory
TL;DR: Monolithos has opened the alpha of Robot Brain, a memory layer meant to retain a robot's failures, corrections, and task outcomes so later planning can use them conditionally. Founder Silas Yu says physical tests are being organized, but evidence currently ends at simulation. In one block-pushing test, recovery improved from seven of 16 conditions to 13. Read more →
Amazon Opens Its Robot Playbook
TL;DR: Amazon and NVIDIA have introduced an open-source Physical AI Toolchain that joins synthetic data, model training, simulation, edge deployment, and fleet feedback in one AWS workflow. It draws on Amazon's experience operating more than one million robots and includes Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, GR00T, and Cosmos. Some elements remain planned, so it is infrastructure, not a ready-to-run robot. Read more →
This Robot Pumps Water To Walk
TL;DR: NYU's WorMa crosses land, steps, slopes, and water by pumping roughly 300 grams of water between its head and tail instead of changing its basic body. Putting weight forward let the 1-kilogram robot climb 19.5-degree inclines and cut transport cost by at least 33%; shifting it rearward increased swimming speed by 26% and efficiency by 52%. Read more →
EPFL Turned Thread Into A Motor
TL;DR: EPFL's FiberMotor turns two concentric, copper-wrapped hollow fibers into a flexible linear actuator that extends and retracts silently without magnets, gears, or a transmission. The 1-3 millimeter motor supported 75 grams alone; four together lifted a 46-gram chocolate bar and bent a robotic finger. Researchers see soft exosuits, haptics, and lightweight prosthetics as potential applications. Read more →
Two Motors Just Replaced Six
TL;DR: North Carolina State University's feather-star robot achieves forward, vertical, and rotational underwater movement with only two actuators driving four elastic wings. The machine uses its structure and the surrounding water as mechanical intelligence, avoiding the six actuators normally needed for similar three-dimensional control. Tests showed it can hover, steer, explore with a camera, and lift objects alone or with partners. Read more →
DEWALT Turns Drilling Into A Fleet
TL;DR: DEWALT's DALE drilling robot has made more than 385,000 concrete holes with over 99% accuracy in data-center projects, according to the company. Built with August Robotics, it autonomously navigates, drills, extracts dust, checks quality, and can work as a fleet. DEWALT says pilots drilled up to ten times faster than conventional work and saved 300 weeks across 44 construction phases. Read more →
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