RobotEra

Introduction / Overview

RobotEra (ROBOT ERA) is a Chinese robotics company specializing in embodied artificial intelligence and humanoid robots, founded in August 2023 and incubated by Tsinghua University's Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences — one of China's premier AI research institutions. In under three years, RobotEra has progressed from academic spinout to shipping manufacturer, with over 600 units cumulatively delivered across global exhibition, retail, and logistics environments and more than half of its orders coming from overseas clients — an unusually international footprint for a young Chinese humanoid maker.

RobotEra presents its portfolio through a "Hexa-Core" concept — strength, agility, precision, stability, durability, and adaptability — showcased at CES 2026 through three flagship products. The L7 is a full-size bipedal humanoid, described as the first in China to combine large-scale dynamic motion with fine manipulation, and one of the fastest humanoid robots ever built, with a record-setting run of 14.4 km/h. The Q5 is a wheeled service humanoid with ultra-human-like presence for reception and hospitality. And the XHAND1 dexterous hand has become one of the research world's reference manipulation platforms, adopted by Skild AI, Humanoid, and Extend Robotics as well as UC Berkeley, MIT, and ByteDance Seed. The lineup extends through the M7 modular upper-body platform for research and education, the earlier STAR1 full-size industrial humanoid, and the ERA-42 end-to-end AI model that unifies the hardware family.

For buyers, RobotEra represents a distinctive proposition: frontier athletic performance and research-grade openness from a company already delivering at commercial scale.

Design and Features

L7 — The Full-Size Athletic Flagship

The L7 is the lineup's headline act: standing 171 cm and weighing approximately 70 kg, with human-like proportions and 55 degrees of freedom, it combines dynamic whole-body athleticism with genuine manipulation capability:

• Class-leading speed and agility — running up to 4 m/s outdoors (with a record-setting 14.4 km/h sprint), jumping, dancing, and 360° spins, backed by outdoor robustness demonstrations including a widely reported Great Wall walk.
• Real manipulation strength — up to 20 kg carried with both arms, with 12 waist-and-torso movement points enabling human-like bending and twisting for practical tasks such as parcel packing and machine tending.
• Ultra-low-latency full-body teleoperation — demonstrated at CES 2026, making the L7 a leading platform for teleoperated data collection and precise remote manipulation.
• Multi-robot collaboration — coordinated operation across multiple L7 units for shared tasks.

Q5 — The Wheeled Service Humanoid

The Q5 trades legs for a mobile wheeled base, purpose-built for customer-facing service:

• 44 degrees of freedom across the body with 7-axis bionic arms lifting up to 10 kg, plus squatting, waist twisting, and handshaking for natural physical interaction.
• Ultra-human-like presence — expressive social gestures suited to receptionist, service assistant, hospitality, and educational-companionship roles.
• XHAND Lite integration — the Q5 carries RobotEra's integrated dexterous hand system, bringing genuine object handling to service deployments.

M7 — The Modular Research Platform

The M7 is a modular upper-body humanoid with high degrees of freedom, optimized for research, testing, and education — offering laboratories the RobotEra manipulation stack in a configurable bench-and-mobile format without full-humanoid overhead.

STAR1 — The Industrial Forerunner

The STAR1, RobotEra's earlier full-size bipedal industrial humanoid, established the company's performance pedigree with 55 degrees of freedom, joint torque of 400 N·m, and joint speeds up to 25 rad/s — engineering that flowed directly into the L7 generation.

XHAND1 — The Reference Dexterous Hand

The fully actuated, 12-DoF XHAND1 — with 270° fingertip tactile arrays and over 24 kg whole-hand capacity — serves both as the dexterous option across RobotEra's humanoids and as a standalone research product whose adoption list (MIT, UC Berkeley, ByteDance Seed, Skild AI) reads as a who's-who of manipulation research.

ERA-42 — The Unifying AI Model

RobotEra's ERA-42 end-to-end embodied-AI model provides the intelligence layer for complex task execution across the hardware family — perception, manipulation, and task learning on a unified stack, improving through updates across every platform.

Technology and Specifications

Choosing Across the Range

Full-Stack Engineering

RobotEra's Tsinghua lineage shows in its unified hardware-software stack: high-performance self-developed actuation (the 400 N·m joint heritage), dense perception, model-based whole-body control, and the ERA-42 learning layer — with secondary development access across the range supporting research use, custom integration, and software extensions including multilingual interaction add-ons.

Delivery at Scale

Over 600 units delivered globally — across exhibitions, retail, and logistics, with a majority-overseas order book — places RobotEra among the few young humanoid companies with real international deployment evidence rather than domestic pilots alone.

Applications and Use Cases

Exhibitions, Events, and Performance

The L7's athleticism — running, dancing, spinning — makes it one of the most compelling live-demonstration humanoids available, headlining launches, venues, and experiential showcases worldwide.

Reception and Hospitality

The Q5's expressive, human-like service presence covers greeting, guidance, and interaction in hotels, showrooms, and public venues — with the physical capability (squatting, lifting, handshakes) that flat-screen kiosks and static robots lack.

Industrial and Logistics Tasks

L7 deployments extend into line-side handling, parcel packing, machine tending, and intelligent sorting — human-scaled work where the platform's combination of strength, reach, and fine manipulation interfaces with existing tools and infrastructure.

Manipulation and Locomotion Research

Between the L7's teleoperation capability, the M7's modularity, and the XHAND1's research pedigree, RobotEra offers one of the most complete research ecosystems of any humanoid maker — the reason its hardware appears in leading labs on three continents.

Education

Universities and institutions deploy the Q5 and M7 for robotics curricula and educational companionship applications, with SDK access supporting student development.

Advantages / Benefits

• Frontier athletic performance — the L7's record-setting speed and dynamic repertoire lead the industry, proven outdoors rather than only on demo stages.
• Research credibility money can't buy — XHAND1 adoption by MIT, UC Berkeley, ByteDance Seed, and leading AI robotics companies validates the engineering across the whole range.
• Delivered, not promised — 600+ units across global commercial environments, with majority-overseas orders demonstrating international support capability.
• Complete ecosystem — bipedal, wheeled, modular, and dexterous-hand platforms unified by the ERA-42 AI stack and one development environment.
• Tsinghua-grade engineering — self-developed actuation, perception, and control from one of the world's top AI research lineages.
• Open development — SDK access across the range protects research investment and supports software extensions.

For buyers researching where to buy a RobotEra robot, or comparing RobotEra prices and costs across the L7, Q5, M7, and XHAND1 — or against competing humanoid brands — the evaluation should weigh dynamic-performance requirements, manipulation needs, deployment evidence, and regional support: the dimensions where RobotEra's combination of athleticism and research pedigree stands apart.

FAQ

What is RobotEra?

RobotEra (ROBOTERA) is a Beijing-based embodied-AI robotics company founded in 2023 and incubated by Tsinghua University, producing the L7 full-size humanoid, Q5 wheeled service humanoid, M7 modular platform, STAR1 industrial humanoid, and XHAND1 dexterous hand — with over 600 units delivered globally.

What is the RobotEra L7?

The L7 is RobotEra's full-size bipedal flagship: 171 cm tall with 55 degrees of freedom, carrying up to 20 kg with both arms, running at up to 4 m/s with a record-setting 14.4 km/h sprint, and supporting ultra-low-latency full-body teleoperation — combining dynamic athleticism with industrial-grade manipulation.

What is the RobotEra Q5?

The Q5 is a wheeled service humanoid with 44 degrees of freedom and 7-axis bionic arms lifting up to 10 kg, designed for receptionist, hospitality, service, and educational roles — capable of squatting, waist twisting, and natural social gestures, with the XHAND Lite integrated hand system.

How fast is the RobotEra L7?

The L7 runs at up to 4 m/s in outdoor environments and set a humanoid speed record of 14.4 km/h, making it among the fastest bipedal humanoid robots ever built.

Can RobotEra robots be used for research and development?

Yes. The L7's teleoperation, the M7's modular design, and the XHAND1's fully actuated architecture make RobotEra one of the strongest research ecosystems available — with SDK access throughout, and adoption by institutions including MIT and UC Berkeley.

Why is RobotEra important?

RobotEra proved that a young academic spinout can reach commercial scale fast: record-setting performance, a research-adopted hand platform, 600+ international deliveries, and a unified AI stack across bipedal, wheeled, and manipulation hardware within three years of founding.

What are the benefits of RobotEra robots?

Key benefits include industry-leading dynamic performance, research-grade openness validated by top institutions, proven international delivery, a complete multi-form-factor ecosystem on one AI stack, Tsinghua-lineage engineering, and open secondary development.

How much does a RobotEra robot cost?

Pricing varies across the range — from the XHAND1 dexterous hand through the Q5 service humanoid to the L7 flagship. Contact a distributor for current pricing, configuration guidance, datasheets, and delivery timelines for your region.

Summary

RobotEra compressed a decade of humanoid progress into three years: a Tsinghua-incubated startup whose L7 now holds the humanoid speed record while packing parcels, whose Q5 greets visitors with genuinely human presence, and whose XHAND1 sits on lab benches at MIT and Berkeley — all backed by 600+ deliveries across global commercial deployments. With the M7 serving research, the ERA-42 model unifying the stack, and open development throughout, RobotEra offers buyers frontier performance with real shipping evidence behind it. For anyone looking to buy a RobotEra robot, compare L7, Q5, and XHAND1 costs, or plan a performance, service, or research deployment, this guide provides the essential foundation.