Unitree prices G1 ($16,000) and R1 ($5,900) humanoids without commercial-deployment claims, inverting the verified-vs-claimed pattern

Unitree Robotics unveiled the G1 humanoid at ICRA in Yokohama on May 13, 2024 at a $16,000 base price, positioning the platform as a research and education resource rather than a commercial-deployment humanoid. Mass production followed in August 2024 with worldwide availability for universities, research labs, and developers. In July 2025 Unitree extended the strategy with the R1 at $5,900 base, explicitly targeting consumer and developer mass-market accessibility with a built-in multimodal language model for voice and image interaction. Both products carry detailed capability specifications (43 degrees of freedom and 2 m/s walking speed for G1; 26 degrees of freedom and onboard MLLM for R1), but neither is positioned with commercial-deployment customer claims; Unitree's editorial framing across both launches consistently treats the products as platforms for users to build on, not as autonomous workers earning industrial cycles in customer facilities.