UBTECH Opens Preorders for Its First Home Humanoid, the UWORLD U1, as China's Top Industrial Robot Maker Pivots Toward the Living Room
UBTECH, which sold 1,079 industrial humanoids in 2025, has launched a consumer brand, UWORLD, and opened JD.com preorders for the U1 ahead of a June 30 reveal.
Overview
UBTECH Robotics, the Shenzhen-based company that has built one of China’s largest industrial humanoid businesses, is turning toward the home. The company has created a dedicated consumer brand called UWORLD and opened preorders for its first household humanoid, the U1, on the e-commerce platform JD.com, with a fuller public reveal scheduled for June 30. According to Humanoids Daily, founder and CEO Zhou Jian announced the launch of UWORLD on May 20, 2026, describing it as the company’s first mass-consumer humanoid brand focused on household and family scenarios.
The move marks a notable shift for a company whose revenue has, until now, come overwhelmingly from factories rather than living rooms.
From the Factory Floor to the Living Room
UBTECH has spent the past two years establishing itself as an industrial robotics supplier. Its Walker series of humanoids is aimed at workplaces: 2025 orders for the Walker line surpassed RMB 630 million ($86 million), and the Walker S2 model features full autonomy and battery-swapping capabilities for continuous operation, as reported by TechNode.
That industrial focus has driven a steep run-up in sales. According to the South China Morning Post, UBTECH’s total revenue climbed 53 percent year on year to 2 billion yuan in 2025, while revenue from full-size embodied humanoid robots and related services reached 820 million yuan (US$119 million) — a 2,203 percent increase from a low base of 35.6 million yuan in 2024. The same report notes that the company sold 1,079 full-size humanoid robots in 2025, up from just three units a year earlier.
The UWORLD brand reorients that hardware know-how toward a different customer. Humanoids Daily characterizes the launch as UBTECH “expanding its focus from the factory floor to the living room”, and the brand’s marketing leans on companionship, carrying the tagline “From now on, you’ll never walk alone.”
What the U1 Is
The U1 is being offered in two full-size variants. According to Origin of Bots, the male model stands 183 cm tall and weighs 42 kg, while the female model is 168 cm and 35.2 kg. Both share the same core hardware: 88 degrees of freedom, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a battery life of two to four hours per charge, figures that are also reported by Humanoid Guide and TechEBlog.
Unlike the work-oriented Walker line, the U1 is positioned around in-home companionship. TechEBlog reports that the robots are designed to detect a user’s mood through “tone, facial expressions, and speaking rate”, and that, in the outlet’s words, “Personal memory is encrypted on the device to keep your conversations secret.” The Tech Outlook adds that the teaser highlighted a “large, nurturing-style emotional model, locally encrypted memory storage, and multi-dimensional appearance customisation”, with the male model shown in a suit and the female model styled with long hair and makeup.
Preorders and Timeline
UBTECH opened preorders on JD.com on June 2 with a 3,000 yuan deposit, according to Humanoid Guide, which reports that the initial batch received more than 2,000 reservations within a day or two. The Tech Outlook puts the early tally higher, reporting that preorders exceeded 2,110 units in six days. The reservation window runs until July 15, and early shipments are expected by September 15 at the latest, as reported by Origin of Bots.
What We Don’t Know
The most important number is still missing: the U1’s final retail price. The 3,000 yuan figure is only a reservation deposit, not the purchase price. Humanoid Guide reports that UBTECH is expected to discuss final pricing at the June 30 presentation, and TechEBlog similarly notes the price will be disclosed at that event. Until then, it is unclear whether the U1 will be priced as a premium novelty or as the start of a broader, more affordable consumer line.
It is also unclear how the companionship features will perform in real homes, how many of the reservation holders will convert to buyers once a price is set, and whether the two-to-four-hour battery runtime will prove practical for everyday use. The June 30 event should answer at least the first of those questions.
Analysis
The UWORLD launch reframes a question that has hung over the humanoid sector: who, beyond factory operators, will actually buy these machines. UBTECH’s 2025 results show that its money has come from industrial deployments, where the Walker series competes for procurement contracts. By spinning up a separate consumer brand and routing preorders through JD.com — a mainstream retail channel rather than an enterprise sales pipeline — the company is testing whether the same underlying hardware can find a market in Chinese households. The early reservation numbers suggest curiosity; the June 30 price reveal will be the first real test of demand.