China’s Unitree teases platform allowing users to control robots through smartphones

Humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics has teased what it calls the world’s first humanoid robot “app store”, a developer platform designed to bring embodied intelligence into everyday life by allowing users to access and control robots directly through their smartphones.

The Hangzhou-based robotics unicorn unveiled a centralised programme, dubbed the Unitree Robotics Developer Platform, offering functions such as datasets and remote control programmes for humanoids. Unitree called it the “world’s first humanoid app store”.

In videos released across the company’s social media platforms, including YouTube, X and Chinese platform RedNote, Unitree urged developers and users alike to “develop and share together”.

Features presented in the humanoid app store include the ability to remote control robots through a phone camera, select demonstrations like the martial arts “Bruce Lee” routine, the 1960s dance move “The Twist”, and ballet sequences. Users will also be able to upload, share and download training datasets and action sequences to incorporate into Unitree’s robots.

Unitree has long been touted as China’s unofficial poster child for robotics capabilities. As one of Hangzhou’s “Six Little Dragons” – firms that have reshaped China’s tech landscape – the company first gained recognition for developing and manufacturing quadruped and humanoid robotics.