VLAI Launches Dual-Arm Wheeled Humanoid K1 for Under $3K
chris_j_paxton · x · 2026-08-13
VLAI Robotics launched the 25-DoF dual-arm wheeled humanoid K1 in China, with a starting price of just ¥19,800 ($2.9K).
Hardware specs include: two 6 kg-payload arms, movable waist and head, 4-wheel omnidirectional base, ±0.02 mm repeatability, and <10 ms control latency. Grippers and dexterous hands are optional.
The robot offers an unusually open developer stack for the price, supporting LeRobot, ROS 2, MoveIt 2, Isaac Sim/Lab, and MuJoCo, with workflows for teleop, VLA, and world models. VLAI says cumulative shipments are approaching 1,000 units. The reviewer notes that at this price point, mobile manipulation hardware is getting cheap enough that the real bottleneck may shift to software and AI.
Related event: VLAI Launches K1 Bimanual Humanoid Robot Under $3,000(2 posts)→
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