CES has all the time been a robotic extravaganza, and this 12 months’s occasion noticed the announcement of quite a lot of vital robotics developments, together with the brand new, production-ready debut of Atlas, the humanoid from Boston Dynamics. Then there have been all of the robots on the showroom ground, the place bots usually function good advertising for the businesses concerned. In the event that they don’t all the time give a very correct illustration of the place business deployment is in the intervening time, they do give guests a peek at the place it is likely to be headed. And, after all, they certain are enjoyable to take a look at. I spent an honest period of time perusing the bots on show this week. Listed here are among the most memorable ones I encountered.
The ping pong participant
The film Marty Supreme simply got here out a month in the past, so I suppose it’s solely applicable that there was a ping-pong-playing robotic at this 12 months’s conference. The Chinese language robotics firm Sharpa had rigged up a full-bodied bot to play some aggressive desk tennis in opposition to one of many agency’s employees. After I stopped by the Sharpa sales space, the robotic was shedding to its human competitor, 5-9, and I might not characterize the sport that was occurring as notably fast-paced. Nonetheless, the spectacle of seeing a robotic play ping pong was spectacular sufficient by itself, and I’m certain I’ve recognized some people whose paddle expertise have been principally equal to (or barely worse than) the bot’s. A Sharpa rep advised me that the corporate’s principal product is its robotic hand, and that the full-bodied bot had been debuted at CES to show the hand’s dexterity.
The boxer
One of many reveals that drew the most important crowds concerned robots from the Chinese language firm EngineAI, which is creating humanoid robots. The bots, dubbed the T800 (a nod to the Terminator franchise), have been in a mock boxing ring and have been styled as combating machines. That mentioned, I by no means noticed any of the bots really hit one another. As a substitute, they might kind of shadowbox close to one another, by no means really making contact. They have been additionally slightly unpredictable. One saved strolling out of the ring and into the viewers, which naturally received an increase out of onlookers. At one other level, one of many bots tripped over its personal toes after which face-planted on the ground, the place it lay for awhile earlier than it determined to stand up once more. So, not precisely a Mike Tyson state of affairs, however the machines nonetheless managed to evoke a spooky form of humanoid habits that made for high-quality leisure. I overheard an observer quip: “That’s an excessive amount of like Robocop.”
The dancer
Dancing robots have lengthy been a staple at CES, and this 12 months was no totally different. This 12 months, the dance-move torch was carried by bots from Unitree, a serious Chinese language robotics producer that has been scrutinized for potential ties to the Chinese language navy. Unitree has made quite a lot of spectacular bulletins about its product base, together with a humanoid bot that may supposedly run at speeds of up to 11 mph. I didn’t see any proof of something nefarious at Unitree’s sales space this week—simply lots of bots that have been feeling the groove.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
The comfort retailer clerk
I finished by the sales space for Galbot, one other Chinese language firm that claims it’s centered on multi-modal massive language fashions and common objective robotics. Galbot’s sales space had been styled to appear like a comfort retailer, and its bot appeared to have been synched with a menu app. A buyer would come to the sales space, choose an merchandise from the menu, after which the bot would go and fetch the chosen merch for them. After I selected Bitter Patch Youngsters, the bot dutifully retrieved a field off the shelf for me. Based on the corporate’s web site, the robotic has been deployed in quite a lot of real-world settings, together with as an assistant at Chinese pharmacies.
The housekeeper
Making a machine that may fold laundry has lengthy been one of many core ambitions of the business robotics group. The flexibility to select up a T-shirt and fold it’s thought-about a fundamental test of automated competence. For that motive, I used to be pretty impressed by the show over at Dyna Robotics, a agency that develops superior manipulation fashions for automated duties. There, a pair of robotic arms could possibly be seen effectively folding laundry and putting it in a pile. A Dyna consultant advised me that the agency had already established partnerships with quite a lot of inns, gyms, and factories.
A type of companies, the rep advised me, is Monster Laundry, primarily based in Sacramento, California. Monster built-in Dyna’s shirt-folding robotic into its operations late final 12 months and now describes itself because the “first laundry middle in North America to debut a state-of-the-art robotic folding system from Dyna.”
Dyna additionally has some spectacular backing. It concluded an $120 million Series A fundraising round in September that included funding from Nvidia’s NVentures, in addition to from Amazon, LG, Salesforce, and Samsung.
The butler
I additionally stopped by LG’s part of CES to check out its new residence robotic, CLOid. It was cute however was not the quickest bot on the block. You’ll be able to learn my full evaluate of that have here.
