Unitree’s Go1 Robot Dog Looks Pretty Great, Costs Just USD $2700
In 2017, we first wrote about the Chinese startup Unitree Robotics, which had the goal of “making legged robots as popular and affordable as smartphones and drones.” Relative to the cost of other quadrupedal robots (like Boston Dynamics’ $74,000 Spot), Unitree’s quadrupeds are very affordable, with their A1 costing under $10,000 when it became available in 2020. This hasn’t quite reached the point of consumer electronics that Unitree is aiming for, but they’ve just gotten a lot closer: now available is the Unitree Go1, a totally decent looking small size quadruped that can be yours for an astonishingly low $2700.
Not bad, right? Speedy, good looking gait, robust, and a nifty combination of autonomous human following and obstacle avoidance. As with any product video, it’s important to take everything you see here with a grain of salt, but based on Unitree’s track record we have no particular reason to suspect that there’s much in the way of video trickery going on.
There are three versions of the Go1: the $2700 base model Go1 Air, the $3500 Go1, and the $8500 Go1 Edu. This looks to be the sort of Goldilocks pricing model, where most people are likely to spring for the middle version Go1, which includes better sensing and compute as well as 50% more battery life an an extra m/s of speed (up to 3.5m/s) for a modest premium in cost. The top of the line Edu model offers higher end computing, 2kg more payload (up to 5kg), as well as foot-force sensors, lidar, and a hardware extension interface and API access. More detailed specs are here, although if you’re someone who actually cares about detailed robot specs, what you’ll find on Unitree’s website at the moment will probably be a little bit disappointing.
