This LiDAR-equipped, 30-pound robot dog can be yours for $1,600

The Unitree Go 2. [credit: Unitree ]

If Boston Dynamic’s $75,000 robot dog, Spot, is too rich for you, how about a stripped-down consumer version? The Chinese robotics company Unitree’s latest robot dog is the Unitree Go 2, which starts at an incredible $1,600. After shipping and duty fees and all that, it’ll cost more like $2,400, but that’s still a bargain compared to an industrial robot.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if these upstart robotics companies are serious and have real products to sell, but we want to stress this is not Unitree’s first robot dog. This is the company’s third-generation consumer product, along with two models of beefier “industrial” bots that compete with Boston Dynamics.

Unitree Go 2 stands at just under 16 inches tall, is 27 inches from head to tail, and weighs 33 pounds. It has a camera, flashlight, and a constantly spinning 360-degree LiDAR sensor on the face. The robot has 12 motors—we’re guessing that means three for each leg—making this a pretty agile robot able to deal with all sorts of uneven outdoor terrain and, like any good dog, do a ton of tricks. The Go2 has an 8000 mAh battery good for about “1–2” hours of runtime, along with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth for communication with the app. The base model has a top speed of 2.5 meters per second.