Keen on humanoid robots but don’t have R100k handy? Noetix Robotics will sell you Bumi, its new commercial humanoid, for a shade less than the cost of the newest flagship smartphone. Priced at around R23,600, you can own your very own humanoid droid traipsing around your home.
What it’ll do there is, largely, up to you. It’s not the most advanced version of the technology, and it’s about the size of a four-year-old, but it’ll do what you ask it to, provided you’re mostly asking it to move around. And, perhaps, punch people. So exactly like a toddler, then.
Sounds a little Bumi
Noetix has previously demonstrated some of Bumi’s skills on the dance floor, where it puts its 94cm 12 kilogram frame through a series of gyrations that will, at the very least, nab you a few extra likes on TikTok. It’s more of an educational product, with private users and schools (with some spare budget) in mind as customers.
It’ll still prove to be a hobbyist product when pre-orders open later this year, primarily due to the inclusion of its “open programming interface for learning and creativity.” It sounds handy, but it’s just a fancy way of saying ‘we made it, you figure out what to do with it.’ It’s a lot like AI in that respect.
But there’s a fair amount of articulation in its composite frame, though almost nothing in terms of upper limb variability, so you’ll probably convince it to walk around and menace household pets or visitors with nasty cases of automatonophobia.
It’s certainly a more novel use of your annual smartphone budget than buying an incrementally upgraded smartphone. Since the tech that created Bumi is still in its infancy, we expect that incrementally-upgraded robots are still a few years in the future.
