An Ars Technica writer bought a $4,017 quadruped robot from Chinese manufacturer Unitree and used it to walk to work in Washington, DC, testing its practicality and drawing curious crowds along the way. The article argues that Unitree's significance lies not in inventing new robotics technology but in making quadruped and humanoid robots dramatically cheaper, potentially doing for robots what Apple and Microsoft did for personal computers—while noting the robots' current usefulness is limited to research and entertainment rather than practical tasks.

During the test, the robot managed a two-mile downhill morning commute easily but struggled on the hotter, uphill return journey, eventually collapsing after its battery dropped to 5 percent and its internal temperature hit 84°C. Unitree, which also sells humanoid robots starting at $13,500, floated on the Shanghai stock exchange on 19 August, with shares surging more than fivefold on debut before settling at a valuation of around $34 billion—still triple its pre-IPO worth—though the company's robots now face legal restrictions in the United States.