Xiaomi beats Tesla to building a working robot
The CyberOne likes to give out flowers, too.
Forget about that crazy-thin foldable phone from earlier. Xiaomi just beat Tesla to unveiling a working humanoid robot prototype at a live event earlier today, and yes, it looks awfully familiar. The Xiaomi CyberOne is 177cm (5.8 feet) tall, weighs 52kg (115 pounds), is nicknamed "Metal Bro" and is also somehow given a zodiac sign, Leo. After a short walk to the middle of the stage, the CyberOne gave CEO Lei Jun a flower (for some reason), before it politely accepted a selfie with the man responsible for its very own existence. The bot was able to walk off the stage without any drama.
The CyberOne is the second product coming out of the Xiaomi Robotics Lab, after the CyberDog from August 2021. The humanoid machine has a face in the form of a curved OLED panel, it can see the world in 3D, and hear with two microphones to identify "85 types of environmental sounds and 45 classifications of human emotion." Its body has a total of 21 degrees of freedom comprised of 13 joints, with each degree of freedom capable of responding within 0.5ms. Its upper limb actuators have an output torque of up to 30Nm, and can operate with a precision of up to 1Nm for a gentle touch. Down below, the legs are powered by actuators with "an instantaneous peak torque of up to 300Nm." But of course, the CyberOne is clearly nowhere near as nimble as Boston Dynamics' Atlas.
I was both nervous and thrilled to interact with him on stage. What did you think of his performance tonight? #CyberOne pic.twitter.com/Je1eXDYEGR
— leijun (@leijun) August 11, 2022
Despite the surprise live demo, Lei said that for now, each CyberOne would cost somewhere in the range of 600,000 to 700,000 yuan (about $89,100 to $104,000), so it'll be a while before his company deems it suitable for mass production, if ever. Until then, Xiaomi will continue adding new capabilities to its first humanoid robot. "With AI at its core and a full-size humanoid frame as its vessel, this is an exploration of possibilities of Xiaomi's future technological ecosystem and a new breakthrough for the company," the exec added. It'll be interesting to see how Elon Musk responds to this lookalike of his own big boy, though he's probably a little distracted these days.
Update 8/11/22 11:20PM ET: Article updated with more technical specs.