You won’t be the only one if you instantly recall Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot when you see a picture of the Xiaomi CyberDog. You can catch a glimpse of it in the video below. As compared to Spot, the CyberDog is lighter (5.2kg v 32.7kg) and faster (1.6 meter/second v 3 meter/second). However, we don’t know what it can do for us, apart from performing tricks like backflips. The CyberDog has three USB-C and one HDMI port to attach lidar sensors, panoramic cameras, and search lights. Boston Dynamics’ robot has multiple enterprise applications in industries such as military, health, and mining survey. But there’s no way of telling yet if Xiaomi aims to make its robot useful for businesses. For now, it looks like Xiaomi wants you to think of this robot dog as a pet, because it’s capable of “following its owner and darting around obstructions.” Plus, it has tech like voice assistant, facial recognition, and human posture detection to make it more like your four-legged friend. Xiaomi is releasing only 1,000 units of CyberDog in China for fans, engineers, and robotic enthusiasts at RMB 9,999 ($1,542) — cheaper than $74,500 of Spot. The company is also launching an open-source community for developers to explore more uses of this dog. Can they make it do more than backflips?
