Galbot Opens Pre-Orders for ET1 Bipedal Humanoid Aimed at Entertainment and Performance

Key Takeaways

Show all

• Galbot has opened pre-orders for the ET1 (branded domestically as "Yinhe Xingzai"), its first production bipedal humanoid robot.
• According to figures shared by Galbot on social media, the platform secured over 200 pre-orders within the first 24 hours of its JD.com listing going live.
• Standing 1,250 mm tall and weighing 32 kg, the platform targets commercial entertainment, storefront greeting, live comedy, and stage choreography rather than heavy industrial logistics.
• The ET1 will be offered in three tiers—Standard, Pro, and Flagship—featuring up to 38 degrees of freedom and onboard compute scaling from an RK3588/RDK X5 baseline up to an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX (100 TOPS).
• While pre-order reservations are open via JD.com, official pricing remains unconfirmed, with Galbot yet to respond to requests for comment.
• The launch marks a direct competitive challenge to lightweight research and performance bipeds like the Unitree R1 and AGIBOT's Lingxi X2.

Beijing-based robotics firm Galbot has officially opened pre-orders for the ET1, its first dedicated bipedal humanoid robot. Marketed domestically as the "Yinhe Xingzai" (Galaxy Starboy), the machine represents a major commercial diversification for the startup, which has rapidly climbed market share rankings largely on the back of heavy wheeled logistics platforms.

The opening of pre-orders follows the robot's athletic teaser campaign and its high-profile AstraTennis exhibition at the World Humanoid Robot Games, positioning Galbot squarely in the race to commercialize agile, mid-sized bipeds. Galbot announced that the ET1 logged more than 200 pre-orders within its first 24 hours of listing, indicating immediate interest from commercial venues, event producers, and institutional buyers.

Galbot has initiated pre-orders via direct booking inquiries on its website and an official listing channel on Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com. However, verified public retail pricing across the model tiers remains unconfirmed.

A Tiered Compact Architecture

According to official technical documentation, the Galbot ET1 stands 1,250 mm (roughly 4.1 feet) tall and weighs 32 kg including battery pack. This compact footprint places it in the mid-sized biped class pioneered by competitors targeting agile physical motion.

Galbot is segmenting the ET1 into three hardware configurations: Standard, Pro, and Flagship.

All configurations rely on a multi-processor architecture combining a Rockchip RK3588 with an RDK X5 processing board for baseline kinematic actuation, sensor management, and communication routines. The Pro and Flagship editions layer on dedicated AI acceleration via NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin family, maxing out at 100 TOPS on the Flagship tier to process real-time vision-language-action policies locally.

AstraBrain and Interactive Self-Learning

Galbot frames the ET1 as a "physical world native agent," pairing the bipedal chassis with its proprietary AstraBrain software stack.

Locomotion and whole-body posture control are governed by AstraBrain-WBC, which the company describes as a 100-million-parameter Transformer-based motion foundation model. Galbot asserts that this unified whole-body controller generates synchronized, human-like gait patterns and balance recoveries dynamically rather than switching across isolated walking states.

Complementing the foundation model is an agentic self-learning pipeline. Galbot claims the ET1 can acquire novel movement capabilities directly through physical demonstrations and human interactive feedback in real-world spaces without requiring external motion-capture camera rigs or pre-recorded video retargeting.

The Entertainment and Service Pivot

While Galbot’s flagship wheeled G1 and S1 platforms have been heavily deployed into structured retail pharmacies and industrial logistics trials backed by investors like CATL, the ET1 is overtly aimed at commercial performance and human interaction:

• Theme Park & Venue Greeting: Navigating dense crowds, proactively welcoming guests, and executing expressive gestures.
• Storefront Hospitality: Front-of-house customer greeting, product demonstrations, and reactive conversational engagement.
• Live Dance Performance: Beat-matched choreographic routines and multi-unit coordinated formation movement on live stages.
• Live Comedy & Dialogue (Xiangsheng): Conversational banter and two-party standup routines driven by natural language response and synchronized physical cues.

This deployment roadmap reflects broader commercial shifts revealed in recent market research: while industrial pilots capture industry headlines, entertainment and interactive performance made up nearly 34% of global humanoid shipments in H1 2026.

Contesting the Sub-1.3-Meter Arena

The ET1's market entrance sets up a head-to-head showdown with several established domestic bipeds.

Its most direct competitor is the Unitree R1, a 1.2-meter, 29-kg machine marketed aggressively around athletic dynamism and developer accessibility, priced as low as $5,500 to $8,100 depending on educational tiers. The ET1 will also contend directly with AGIBOT's Lingxi X2 lineup. AGIBOT has captured substantial market share by coupling agile hardware capable of complex flips with its LinkCraft zero-code choreography platform for stage entertainment and commercial reception.

For Galbot—which captured roughly 5.0% of global humanoid deliveries in the first half of 2026—the ET1 is a critical product trial. Proving it can reliably mass-produce and deploy full bipedal architectures alongside its commercial wheeled units will be paramount as the company explores a public listing and attempts to turn interactive stagecraft into repeatable commercial revenue.