Figure: chores succeed 56% of the time in 30 homes; Qiyuan Q1 and T1 on Sept 20; VR teleoperation for the G1 Edu

Figure: in 30 homes it had never seen, chores succeed 56% of the time

Figure rented 30 homes in the Bay Area and sent in the Figure 03 humanoid running the Helix 2.5 model, without training it on those homes. Three tasks, 420 trials: making the bed 94 of 140 (67%), folding towels 87 of 140 (62%), tidying toys 56 of 140 (40%); in total 237 of 420, or 56%. The three tasks had been learned beforehand on the internal Index dataset; the evaluation was done by the company, with no independent verification. On September 18 CEO Brett Adcock admitted that the year's goal, a robot that works on its own in a home for long stretches, has not been reached, and described the future Figure 04 as the biggest hardware leap between two generations, giving no specs, date or price.

Why it matters for buyers: Figure does not sell to private individuals and has no price list, but these are the most honest numbers published so far on a humanoid in a real home: one task in three goes wrong when tidying toys. Anyone weighing up an expensive home robot can use them as a yardstick: at these percentages, teleoperation or a person to put things right are still needed.

Qiyuan Q1 and T1: debut on September 20 in Shanghai, 210 million yuan already paid in

Qiyuan, the personal-robot brand of China's Shangwei New Materials, presents its two products on September 20 at the West Bund Dream Center in Shanghai, with events in stores in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Xiamen and Xi'an. The Q1 is a small humanoid about 88 cm tall and 15 kg, with whole-body force control, aimed at development, collecting and companionship; the T1 stands about 100 cm tall, weighs 16 kg and transforms from biped to wheeled quadruped, for companionship at home and outdoors and for video shooting. Both promise voice interaction, long-term memory, language teaching and block programming. Pre-orders have been open since August 23 with a ¥1,000 deposit worth ¥2,000 toward the balance, via mini-program, Tmall, Douyin and Bilibili, with first deliveries expected in September; according to company figures reported by ifeng, deposits already collected on consumer robots come to 210 million yuan. Final prices are not yet public.

Why it matters for buyers: it is a launch of "personal" humanoids under one metre tall through consumer-electronics channels. For now it is China only: no CE marking, no European reseller, and anyone importing pays customs duty and VAT. The figure to note is the September 20 price list; then independent tests of autonomy and robustness are needed, especially of the T1's transformation.

Toborlife: whole-body teleoperation for the G1 Edu with a PICO headset

On September 18 Toborlife AI, Unitree's US partner in Mountain View, put on sale whole-body teleoperation software for the G1 Edu: whoever wears a PICO headset moves the robot's arms, legs and torso in real time, down to individual fingers with the optional dexterous hands, and the system records the movements in a format ready for training. Data stays on the customer's hardware; onboarding and support from the United States are included. Price not published; the target is labs, universities and developers.

Why it matters for buyers: many "human-looking" G1 videos are a person wearing a headset, and now that piece can be bought. It applies only to the Edu, which in Europe starts at €27,000 including VAT from Génération Robots (sold out), not to the base G1 at $13,500 from the Unitree store, which does not support development. Ask for the licence price and whether it is included in the Edu configuration on offer.