Oli

Oli suits a university lab or a company that wants a full-size walking body to develop its own software on, and is happy to deal directly with a Chinese maker. If you'd rather buy from a maker with its own online store, Unitree's H2 is the closest full-size comparison, and its G1 is a smaller, cheaper way into humanoid development. If you want a robot that helps around the house, LimX has shown Oli doing chores in its own video, but nobody else has seen it do them.

Oli is LimX Dynamics' general-purpose humanoid, a 165cm robot aimed at researchers, robotics engineers and companies building their own applications. It follows the CL-1, a walking-only research robot that never had hands, and sits alongside Luna, LimX's performance humanoid for shops and events. There are Lite, EDU and Super editions. The hands swap out, from simple two-finger grippers to five-finger hands, and the EDU and Super versions open up the robot's joints, sensors and task planning to your own code.

The trade-off is that Oli is a platform, not a helper. Out of the box it walks, keeps its balance and runs a library of preset gestures and dances; anything useful beyond that is yours to build. LimX quotes about an hour and a half per battery, and each arm is rated for only a few kilos. You buy through LimX's sales team or a reseller, and there's little sign yet of local support outside China.