RoboStore, a major U.S. distributor of China’s most popular humanoid robots and robotic dogs, is shifting its business strategy. The company plans to manufacture its own robots at a 66,000-square-foot facility in Long Island, New York, as the U.S. government increases scrutiny of foreign-made robotics products.
RoboStore previously served as North America’s primary distributor for humanoid and quadrupedal robots made by Unitree Robotics, a Chinese company known for producing some of the world’s most affordable and widely used robots. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amazon, and Nvidia are among the organizations that have purchased Chinese-made robots through RoboStore for research and development.
“We have sold and deployed more than 1,500 robots and worked with customers such as Cisco, OpenAI, and Nvidia, as well as more than 150 universities,” RoboStore founder and CEO Teddy Hagerty told Ars.
On August 10, RoboStore announced plans to fully open its commercial robot manufacturing facility by the first quarter of 2027. The company has also established a new business called Robo Inc., which will oversee robot manufacturing, robotics integration, and related commercial operations.
RoboStore pivots to custom robot manufacturing
Hagerty and his team began exploring in-house robot manufacturing about a year ago. Through their work supporting customer deployments and integrating robotic systems, they gained a clearer understanding of how businesses plan to use robots in specific industries and applications.
That experience also led RoboStore to conclude that many companies may benefit more from specialized robots designed for particular tasks than from humanoid robots marketed as a one-size-fits-all solution.
“Companies like Standard Bots and Universal Robots have robotic arms for specific use cases,” Hagerty told Ars. “I would tell anyone that those products are better suited for most companies than humanoid robots for what they want to accomplish.”
Source: arstechnica.com