RoboticaGuide: Humanoid Robot and Embodied AI News

Robotica Guide covers humanoid robots, embodied AI and large language models, with a focus on what companies have actually shipped, demonstrated or disclosed. Every article links its primary sources and labels company claims, demos, pilots and deployments for what they are. Edited by Brandon Cook.

Unitree industrial robots in a warehouse aisle — official Unitree product photography used for the IPO evergreen featured image

Unitree industrial robots in a warehouse aisle — official Unitree product photography used for the IPO evergreen featured image

Unitree STAR Market IPO: Filing, Raise and What Listing Means

November 6, 2026

StarBot Spark, Astra and Flex humanoid and wheeled platforms standing side by side on a white studio background

StarBot Spark, Astra and Flex humanoid and wheeled platforms standing side by side on a white studio background

StarBot Spark Is $7,999. Here’s What That Price Leaves Out

White Figure 03 humanoid robot with a black visor head and black gloved hands perched on a sofa arm, reaching toward a plate on a living-room coffee table

White Figure 03 humanoid robot with a black visor head and black gloved hands perched on a sofa arm, reaching toward a plate on a living-room coffee table

Tesla Optimus vs Figure 03 vs Atlas: What Can Be Compared Fairly (2026)

Latest

Wheeled CMU Pixel humanoid robot beside a person sitting on a sofa in a lab, still from the official Pixel project photo

Wheeled CMU Pixel humanoid robot beside a person sitting on a sofa in a lab, still from the official Pixel project photo

CMU’s Pixel Is a Wheeled Humanoid Under $15,000. The Catch: It’s Still a Lab Stack

ChatGPT chat showing the prompt "nice. can you add pink lasers?" above an AI-generated GIF of a blue bird in pink heart sunglasses firing pink lasers, with a playback speed menu from 0.5x to 2x open

ChatGPT chat showing the prompt "nice. can you add pink lasers?" above an AI-generated GIF of a blue bird in pink heart sunglasses firing pink lasers, with a playback speed menu from 0.5x to 2x open

ChatGPT Images 2.6 Makes GIFs. The API Version Costs the Same but Drops the 50% Batch Discount

Guides and Explainers

Two teal and black Agility Digit 5 humanoid robots at a workbench, one lifting a blue tote of metal parts, in a still from Agility's Introducing Digit 5 video

Two teal and black Agility Digit 5 humanoid robots at a workbench, one lifting a blue tote of metal parts, in a still from Agility's Introducing Digit 5 video

Humanoid Robot Glossary: DoF, Payload, Runtime, IP Ratings and Other Spec-Sheet Terms Explained

What DoF, instant vs sustained payload, runtime, run-to-charge ratio, IP67, tactile sensing, VLA and other humanoid spec-sheet terms mean, with real examples from the Boston Dynamics Atlas,…

November 3, 2026

Dark grey Figure 03 humanoid robot holding a black plastic car body part beside green parts bins at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, with a second Figure 03 working in the background

Dark grey Figure 03 humanoid robot holding a black plastic car body part beside green parts bins at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, with a second Figure 03 working in the background

Humanoid Robot Readiness Levels: How to Tell a Demo From a Real Deployment

October 14, 2026

Bipedal vs Wheeled Humanoid Robots: What Actually Changes

October 7, 2026

What Is a Robot Foundation Model? (VLA, GR00T, Helix and Open Weights)

October 7, 2026

Comparisons

Grey and silver robotic hand gripping black scissors that are cutting a sheet of white paper on a wooden table

Grey and silver robotic hand gripping black scissors that are cutting a sheet of white paper on a wooden table

Unitree Dex5-S Robot Hand Costs From $6,350. Atlas and Sharpa Haven’t Named a Price

Unitree lists its 22-joint Dex5-S robot hand from $6,350. How it compares with Atlas's new 13-joint hand, Sharpa's W02 and Tesla's tactile-sensor patent, and what none of them has proved yet.

October 12, 2026

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot standing on a lit stage, next to a Tesla Optimus humanoid robot displayed in a glass case

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot standing on a lit stage, next to a Tesla Optimus humanoid robot displayed in a glass case

Humanoid Robot Prices 2026: Every Published Price, Checked

October 12, 2026

Close-up of the Flourish 1 home robot's round white head with two small rectangular eyes under a wide pale-green conical hat

Close-up of the Flourish 1 home robot's round white head with two small rectangular eyes under a wide pale-green conical hat

The $3,555 Flourish 1 Home Robot Comes With No Warranty and No Returns

October 11, 2026

White Astribot T1 robot with a black visor-style face and a cap, one gripper raised, at a riverside railing in front of a yellow suspension bridge

White Astribot T1 robot with a black visor-style face and a cap, one gripper raised, at a riverside railing in front of a yellow suspension bridge

Astribot’s T1 Robot Starts at $18,000 in the US. What the Price Does and Doesn’t Cover

October 10, 2026

Robot Companies

Agility Robotics Digit 5 humanoid with teal arms raised in a factory aisle, still from Agility's official Introducing Digit 5 video

Agility Robotics Digit 5 humanoid with teal arms raised in a factory aisle, still from Agility's official Introducing Digit 5 video

Agility Robotics Is Public: AGLT Begins Trading After the Churchill XI Close

Agility closed its Churchill Capital XI SPAC on Nov 4 and begins Nasdaq trading Nov 5 as AGLT. What closed, the ~$465M gross capital, Digit 5 order claims, and what is still unproven.

November 5, 2026

A black Xiaomi humanoid robot reaches into a parts bin on a wheeled cart while a white humanoid works beside another cart in Xiaomi's car factory assembly hall

A black Xiaomi humanoid robot reaches into a parts bin on a wheeled cart while a white humanoid works beside another cart in Xiaomi's car factory assembly hall

Xiaomi’s Humanoid Robot Worked an 8-Hour Car Factory Shift. It Stopped Twice to Charge

November 4, 2026

Tutor Intelligence's Sonny robot, two white robot arms with cameras on a vertical lift above a white base, standing in a warehouse aisle between shelves of boxed products

Tutor Intelligence's Sonny robot, two white robot arms with cameras on a vertical lift above a white base, standing in a warehouse aisle between shelves of boxed products

Tutor Intelligence Raises $75M to Rent Out Robots by the Hour

November 3, 2026

A green Symbotic SymBot robot driving along an aisle under blue storage racking inside a Symbotic warehouse system, with more SymBots in the background

A green Symbotic SymBot robot driving along an aisle under blue storage racking inside a Symbotic warehouse system, with more SymBots in the background

Walmart Commits About $6 Billion More to Symbotic’s Warehouse Robots. What the Filing Says

November 2, 2026

Audi Is Testing Agile Robots’ Mobile Humanoids for Parts Sequencing. Here’s What It Hasn’t Said

November 1, 2026

Agility Robotics’ SPAC Raise Shrinks to About $465 Million After Redemptions. AGLT Is Due Nov 5

November 1, 2026

Policy and Safety

Silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a glowing face visor holding a frying pan over an induction plate at a workbench, with eggs in a glass bowl

Silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a glowing face visor holding a frying pan over an induction plate at a workbench, with eggs in a glass bowl

The UK’s First Humanoid Robot Insurance Is Here. What Adrian Flux’s Home Policy Covers

Adrian Flux and Tokio Marine HCC International launched what they call the UK's first home insurance for domestic humanoid robots on October 29, 2026. It covers damage and theft, up to £5,000…

November 2, 2026

Google Search Relations' Gary Illyes and Cherry seated at a desk with an old CRT computer, a tangle of cables and a No entry sign in a Google Search Central video about robots.txt

Google Search Relations' Gary Illyes and Cherry seated at a desk with an old CRT computer, a tangle of cables and a No entry sign in a Google Search Central video about robots.txt

Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic Back One robots.txt AI Training Opt-Out. Here’s the Catch

Yellow FANUC industrial robot arms with cable bundles working around a car body held on an orange fixture in an automotive plant

Yellow FANUC industrial robot arms with cable bundles working around a car body held on an orange fixture in an automotive plant

Trump’s Section 232 Robotics Proclamation Sets No Tariffs Yet. It Starts a 180-Day Clock

A small cream and yellow Lightberry Lumi humanoid robot with round blue eyes standing at a black railing on a rooftop in Washington, DC, with the Washington Monument and the White House grounds behind it at sunset

A small cream and yellow Lightberry Lumi humanoid robot with round blue eyes standing at a black railing on a rooftop in Washington, DC, with the Washington Monument and the White House grounds behind it at sunset

Lightberry’s Lumi Is the First Humanoid Cleared Under the FCC Robot Ban. It’s Built on a Unitree G1

Humanoid Robots

Booster humanoid robots in blue and purple team bibs contesting a soccer ball in front of the goal at RoboCup 2026, with spectators behind the pitch

Booster humanoid robots in blue and purple team bibs contesting a soccer ball in front of the goal at RoboCup 2026, with spectators behind the pitch

Humanoid Robot Competitions and Benchmarks: What Races, RoboCup and Leaderboards Really Prove

November 4, 2026

A researcher wearing a VR headset teleoperates a humanoid robot reaching into an open refrigerator while a second researcher stands at the robot's wheeled hoist frame at KIMM's data factory

A researcher wearing a VR headset teleoperates a humanoid robot reaching into an open refrigerator while a second researcher stands at the robot's wheeled hoist frame at KIMM's data factory

South Korea Opens Its First Humanoid Data Factory, With 12 Teleoperated Robots

November 3, 2026

AgiBot co-founder Peng Zhihui on a stage in front of a large screen titled Worken Redefining Machine Value, showing four robot deployment panels with Worken scores

AgiBot co-founder Peng Zhihui on a stage in front of a large screen titled Worken Redefining Machine Value, showing four robot deployment panels with Worken scores

AgiBot’s New Worken Metric Counts Robot Work, Not Robots Built. AgiBot Sets the Benchmarks

October 30, 2026

Reward AI’s OM-1 Humanoid Unloads a Cybertruck. It Was Trained Without Teleoperation, the Company Says

October 30, 2026

GXO Takes Agility’s Digit to Two More Warehouses in 2027. The Older Robot Goes First

October 28, 2026

Embodied AI

Three photos of research robot setups side by side: a white robot arm gripping an apple next to a soda can, a gripper routing a white cable on a lab table, and a small black robot arm in a toy kitchen sink

Three photos of research robot setups side by side: a white robot arm gripping an apple next to a soda can, a gripper routing a white cable on a lab table, and a small black robot arm in a toy kitchen sink

Open X-Embodiment Dataset Explained: What’s Inside, What RT-X Showed and Its Limits

November 3, 2026

Dozens of simulated Atlas humanoid robots carrying grey boxes between pedestals on a blue checkered floor, in a parallel training simulation

Dozens of simulated Atlas humanoid robots carrying grey boxes between pedestals on a blue checkered floor, in a parallel training simulation

Sim-to-Real Explained: How Robots Learn in Simulation, Then Work in the Real World

November 2, 2026

A white and silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot sitting in an orange armchair beside a long grey bench in an office lounge, with a thin green cable running from the robot across the carpet

A white and silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot sitting in an orange armchair beside a long grey bench in an office lounge, with a thin green cable running from the robot across the carpet

NVIDIA’s Metatron Gives the Unitree G1 One Free Policy to Walk, Sit and Get Up. Here’s the Fine Print

Trossen Robotics Stationary AI robot: two black robot arms with wrist cameras mounted on a frame above a black tabletop, on a white background

Trossen Robotics Stationary AI robot: two black robot arms with wrist cameras mounted on a frame above a black tabletop, on a white background

FineART Dataset: Scale AI and Hugging Face Open 1,718 Hours of Robot Data With Step-by-Step Labels

AI Models

Apptronik Apollo 2 humanoid robot reaching into a basket at a garage shelving unit, from Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics 2 video, labeled Autonomous 1x

Apptronik Apollo 2 humanoid robot reaching into a basket at a garage shelving unit, from Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics 2 video, labeled Autonomous 1x

Robot Foundation Models Timeline, 2023 to 2026: From RT-2 to Gemini Robotics 2

A dated timeline of robot foundation models from RT-1 and RT-2 to Open X-Embodiment, OpenVLA, pi0, Helix, GR00T and Gemini Robotics 2: what each release showed, which models you can download,…

November 5, 2026

LiberAI's LEO robot in a white cap and jacket fills a cup at a milk tea station, reaching toward a cup-sealing machine with its dexterous robot hands

LiberAI's LEO robot in a white cap and jacket fills a cup at a milk tea station, reaching toward a cup-sealing machine with its dexterous robot hands

LiberAI’s Liber-0 Hit 36% on Robot Tasks It Never Practiced. Multi-Step Jobs: 10.5%

November 4, 2026

ChatGPT and Codex Usage Will Share One Limit From December. Only Instant Chat Is Exempt

November 4, 2026

Tencent Hy4 Adds Vision and Computer Use at $0.83 per Million Tokens. Its Open Weights Aren’t Out Yet

November 4, 2026