The economics of the cheapest humanoid currently available (Unitree R1)

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Alan Timm

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Jun 21, 2026, 3:25:04 PM (4 days ago) Jun 21
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Thomas started a conversation with me today about the Unitree R1 and it was so good I'm going to share the highlights.  (Thanks Thomas!)


So Unitree updated their product and storefront page with pricing and details on the 3 different R1 models.

A little back of the napkin calculations:
screenshot_20260621_120508.jpg

The R1 Air and R1 are radio controlled toys.  you can drive them around but you can't program them.

And all of their robots have enabled secureboot, so it's unlikely you'd be able to buy the cheap one and crack it to unlock programming capability, but...

The same guys that did the jailbreak for the Go2 are on the case, so you never know?

And for those of you thinking you can buy the cheap one and use it as a bag-o-parts and make your own control systems and cpu --  first you'll need to crack the encrypted comms for the bldc motor units.  to my knowledge that hasn't been done on the go2 motors either.

The R1 EDU is the only version that is programmable, but we're talking about company/university/committed hobbyist levels of programming.  Not blockly so much as end-to-end programming like gr00t or isaac lab.  not for the faint-of-heart.

So assuming that EDU is the 100TOPS Jetson Orin NX 16gb unit, you're not going to be able to run Gr00t on it anyways so you're limited to other frameworks and issac lab rl trained models.   Just like the G1, people are throwing compute backpacks on these guys with either Orin AGX or Thor, or just doing the compute remotely.

And instead of paying for their incredibly overpriced DEX-3 hands you can go with your own open source hand design or something like the amazinghand:

So even at $16k it's the lowest cost full-size-ish humanoid on the market right now.

But you're going to be spending most of your time with the R1 under a gantry anyways until you figure everything out.
screenshot_20260621_122126.jpg

So what do you think?  

Thomas Messerschmidt

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Jun 21, 2026, 5:20:48 PM (4 days ago) Jun 21
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So I’m talking to Alan‘s AI?


Thomas Messerschmidt

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Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   




On Jun 21, 2026, at 12:25 PM, Alan Timm <gest...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thomas started a conversation with me today about the Unitree R1 and it was so good I'm going to share the highlights.  (Thanks Thomas!)


So Unitree updated their product and storefront page with pricing and details on the 3 different R1 models.

A little back of the napkin calculations:
<screenshot_20260621_120508.jpg>


The R1 Air and R1 are radio controlled toys.  you can drive them around but you can't program them.

And all of their robots have enabled secureboot, so it's unlikely you'd be able to buy the cheap one and crack it to unlock programming capability, but...

The same guys that did the jailbreak for the Go2 are on the case, so you never know?

And for those of you thinking you can buy the cheap one and use it as a bag-o-parts and make your own control systems and cpu --  first you'll need to crack the encrypted comms for the bldc motor units.  to my knowledge that hasn't been done on the go2 motors either.

The R1 EDU is the only version that is programmable, but we're talking about company/university/committed hobbyist levels of programming.  Not blockly so much as end-to-end programming like gr00t or isaac lab.  not for the faint-of-heart.

So assuming that EDU is the 100TOPS Jetson Orin NX 16gb unit, you're not going to be able to run Gr00t on it anyways so you're limited to other frameworks and issac lab rl trained models.   Just like the G1, people are throwing compute backpacks on these guys with either Orin AGX or Thor, or just doing the compute remotely.

And instead of paying for their incredibly overpriced DEX-3 hands you can go with your own open source hand design or something like the amazinghand:

So even at $16k it's the lowest cost full-size-ish humanoid on the market right now.

But you're going to be spending most of your time with the R1 under a gantry anyways until you figure everything out.
<screenshot_20260621_122126.jpg>


So what do you think?  

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<screenshot_20260621_120508.jpg>

Alan Timm

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Jun 21, 2026, 10:23:10 PM (4 days ago) Jun 21
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Not yet.  Lloyd has access to my email and calendar but isn't allowed to respond or write them -- yet.  :-)

Alan

Alan Timm

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Jun 22, 2026, 11:09:12 PM (3 days ago) Jun 22
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Oddly enough there isn't alot on youtube showing off the R1 yet.

Here are the only two substantial videos I can find.  Both are non-english but give you a good look at the robot and capabilities.

Thomas Messerschmidt

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Jun 22, 2026, 11:28:14 PM (3 days ago) Jun 22
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It's interesting to watch the videos. I agree, these are expensive toys. 

A couple of observations:  I don't like the robot's head. It looks like a skull with ski goggles. What were they going for? And, it is much smaller than I imagined. 

And the quadruped--the guy sat on it! I didn't know those could take a man's weight. 

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Alan Timm

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Jun 23, 2026, 1:31:20 PM (3 days ago) Jun 23
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Yeah they really missed the mark with the R1 head and the H2 head in my opinion.  

So weird.

So I probably won't be plopping my credit card down for any of these any time soon.

And I was thinking...  

Alfie is almost as tall as R1, has working hands, and has a propensity to fall over just like the R1.  And at 1/10th the price and supports the full gr00t n1.7 model on board.

I think Alfie will keep my busy for a while.  :-)

Alan

Alan Timm

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Jun 23, 2026, 1:38:10 PM (3 days ago) Jun 23
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It looks like there were a couple of revisions of the head, and the settled on the worst one.

Here is most likely an earlier version.
screenshot_20260623_103703.jpg

Thomas Messerschmidt

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Jun 23, 2026, 2:54:40 PM (3 days ago) Jun 23
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What will the groot model do for the robot? Have you gotten any of it working? I have yet to dive into the capabilities of it.



Thomas Messerschmidt

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Need something prototyped, built or coded? I’ve been building prototypes for companies for 15 years. I am now incorporating generative AI into products.

Contact me directly or through LinkedIn:   




On Jun 23, 2026, at 10:31 AM, Alan Timm <gest...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah they really missed the mark with the R1 head and the H2 head in my opinion.  
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