In 2021, Xiaomi launched the CyberDog, endearingly calling it an "open source quadruped robot companion." To say that the robotic beast looked menacing is an understatement; let's just say it wouldn't be out of place in a dystopian movie in which robots rule over humans with an iron fist (paw?).
Now, the company has a new robotic dog, and it's thankfully a less scary than the original, with a head that sort of resembles a real dog's head, pointy ears and all.
It's called the CyberDog 2, and while it was originally announced in 2023, now the company brought it to MWC Barcelona to show what it can do.
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While the company didn't exactly let me play fetch with its quadruped robotic animal, I did see a demo in which four CyberDogs 2 danced, wiggled, and did backflips in unison. It was impressive, and yes, still scary, and fairly unlikely to replace most dog lover's preference for actual, live animals.
Xiaomi says the CyberDog 2 can make its own decisions (hopefully, uprisings aren't among them), and that it has 19 sensors for vision, touch and hearing. It is designed to "replicate the movements, appearance, and interactions of a real dog," the company said in a press release.
Just like the original CyberDog, the new variant is still open-source, meaning developers should be able to create apps for the robotic dog.
As for the price, it is steep. At $3,000, you can probably buy several real dogs. But can they do backflips? We didn't think so, human.
