\n<\/p>\n
When Edward Warchocki<\/span> speaks with you, he sounds like a regular guy. \u201cNot super intelligent, but very emotional, very easy to make friends with,\u201d says Bartosz Idzik, the person who created him. But when he doesn\u2019t talk, it\u2019s harder to forget what Warchocki really is: a 4-foot-tall humanoid robot<\/a> that\u2019s wandering the city streets of Poland.<\/p>\n Six months ago, Idzik and his friend Rados\u0142aw Grzelaczyk had the idea of buying a humanoid robot from China. They named it \u201cEdward Warchocki\u201d after Grzelaczyk\u2019s dog Eddie and the Polish word for growling, \u201cwarcze\u0107,\u201d but also because it sounds like a passable name for a Pole. The first few days they took Edward out, it couldn\u2019t speak, and people were clearly scared of it. Then Idzik, a software developer, wired Edward to a large language model that made it capable of having live conversations in Polish.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he started to talk, people loved him. Without talking, it\u2019s just a 40-kilogram machine,\u201d Idzik says.<\/p>\n Edward soon made lots of friends. It visited the Polish parliament and talked to politicians, hiked up mountains and waded in the lake, and was jokingly arrested by the police. In April, a video of it chasing away wild boars in Warsaw, armed with a backpack and a Rolex, went viral worldwide<\/a>. By now, Edward has over 1 million followers and 4 billion views across social media.<\/p>\n In 2026, you must have seen at least one of these humanoid influencers vibing around the world. There\u2019s \u201cRizzbot<\/a>,\u201d which wears a cowboy hat and flirts with passersby on the streets of Austin; \u201cBart Robot<\/a>,\u201d which was breakdancing with Knicks fans in New York, celebrating the team\u2019s historic championship; and the \u201cBrickell Clanker<\/a>,\u201d which changed into different jerseys to party with World Cup fans after each game.<\/p>\n But unless you\u2019ve been paying close attention, you probably haven\u2019t realized these robots are all the same model: Unitree<\/a> G1, one of the most available and affordable humanoid robots on the global market today, made by a Chinese company that\u2019s leading the robotics industry<\/a>. The G1 is about the size of a child, with a hollowed-out face with a ring of blue light and light-gray limbs made of aluminum. It\u2019s going on America\u2019s Got Talent<\/em><\/a>, showing off kung fu<\/a>, having boxing matches<\/a>, parkouring<\/a>, dancing at concerts<\/a>, running with kids<\/a>, cooking (but failing)<\/a>, streaming with Kai Cenat<\/a>, begging for money<\/a>, dating itself<\/a>, being ordained as a monk in Japan<\/a> and Korea<\/a>, and praying at a mosque in Dubai<\/a>.<\/p>\n An anonymous shitposter on X<\/a> put it: \u201cThis clanker is lit as fuck!\u201d<\/p>\n Unitree will go public on the Chinese stock market in about two weeks. Its financial disclosure tells how popular the company\u2019s products are: Unlike most robot companies whose products are still being tested in labs, more than half of Unitree\u2019s 2025 revenue came from delivering humanoid robots to real customers. It shipped 5,511 humanoids in 2025 at an average price of less than $25,000 each. And 43 percent of all sales came from outside China. The company also became profitable for the first time last year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tested a lot of humanoids, and the G1 was the best for its purpose,\u201d Idzik says. \u201cWe are used to China copying other countries, but from the perspective of humanoids, other people should copy China. \u201d<\/p>\n Despite its commercial success, the company and its robots are often the subject of intense doubts. Sure, they can perform clout-seeking, crowd-pleasing tasks, but can they hold down a traditional job contributing to the economy, like working on an assembly line or cleaning a house? When will Unitree G1 get a real job?<\/p>\n Jake Cooperstein, a 24-year-old who lives in Miami, says he was inspired by Edward and other accounts to create a humanoid influencer of his own. In January, he visited the warehouse of a robotics shop in New York and tested the Unitree G1 robot. He was impressed by how easy it was to operate. The next day, he secured an order and paid the deposit.<\/p>\n On Unitree\u2019s website, a basic G1 robot is priced at $13,500, but that\u2019s before any tariff, shipping, and taxes. A US distributor lists the robot at about $19,000 instead. Cooperstein was not satisfied with that, though. The most basic version doesn\u2019t come with more sophisticated parts like dextrous hands<\/a> and is prohibited from modification. He instead chose the U5 variation that\u2019s designed for educational buyers. It has more parts and better customization but sits at the price of $66,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nBuying It in the US<\/h2>\n