A closer look at Honor’s Robot Phone

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1:00One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. Let's take a closer look at honors robot phone. But first, how much would you pay for a good night's sleep? This is a question we fast ourselves repeatedly over the last few weeks as we've been testing the Dreamy, a $250 alarm clock and a bedside companion, that we couldn't stop thinking about after we first encountered it at CES. Ambience Dreamy offers many of the conveniences of a smartphone-connected device, highly customizable alarm schedules, a library of soundscapes and noise masks, Bluetooth, so you can connect to earbuds and podcasts soon. And it is phone-free every step of the way with all controls and features built in so you don't end up getting sucked into a doom scroll while you're trying to wind down. It also has a light ring for ambient lighting modes and sunrise wakeups. This spring, it's expected to start providing sleep insights as well for users who opt in,

2:02using its microphone and motion sensors to get a reading on their nightly habits. We'd our entire review of the Dreamy and more gadgets right now at Engadget.com. While Honor has already made plenty of product announcements with tablets, foldables and more, its most interesting device, MWC 2026, is the robot phone and maybe the humanoid robot that came alongside it. After briefly showing off a model at CES, Honor isn't quite ready to launch its robot phone. However, we got more specs, tech demos, and a closer look following the company's MWC press event in Barcelona. The robot phone is currently set to launch later this year. Honor has put a lot of effort into ensuring its camera gimbal is highly mobile, to the point of creating a tiny personal robot that is, dare we say, adorable. The robot phone's pop-up camera can cock its head, shake to say no, nod to agree, and

3:04even flip, or at least rotate 360 degrees. According to Honor's presentation, it can even bop along the songs. A spokesperson told me that it's got five songs in its repertoire, so it's not clear whether they're programs for these kind of demos or will be a feature of the final retail device. Another demo here at MWC showed how you could make the robot phone sleep by covering its gimbal eye, though it's odd that the camera is still exposed rather than folded away. My main concern with the robot phone is the robustness and durability of its robotic mechanisms. We've lived through several waves of smartphones that attempted much simpler mechanical camera functions, and the threat of dust or heavy-handed users can't be ignored. The company says it's taken what it learned from foldables regarding high performance materials and simulation accuracy and applied it to shrinking the camera module. At one stage, Honor CEO James Lee revealed what he called the industry's smallest micromotor,

4:05much smaller than a one-year-old coin, and he added 70% smaller than existing micromotors. As this component has been reduced substantially, the robot phone's gimbal will be the industry's smallest four degrees of freedom gimbal system. That's a spec, we've finally got a spec. It'll also offer three access stabilization in this tiny camera package, with the primary camera using a 200 megapixel sensor. The fold-away panel that the primary camera tucks into also reveals more typical cameras, so you're not forced to use the gimbal if you don't need it. Still, that's one very thick camera unit. Honor has already started building out camera modes and features with a super steady video mode that enhances stability while swinging the robot phone around to capture video. AI object tracking will, apparently, intelligently follow subjects, while AI's spin shot supports intelligent 90-degree and 180-degree rotational movement for more cinematic transitions.

5:06We've seen these sorts of pre-programmed movements and functions in full-size phone gimbals and action camps. If Honor can nail it in such a tiny form, it'll be impressive. Other specifications during Honor's press event were sparse, although the company announced the collaboration with ARRI Image Science to bring its cinematic smarts to the robot phone's gimbal camera. In a press release, Honor's Lee said the collaboration would bring ARRI's cinematic standards and professional workflows into mobile imaging. It's, apparently, the first time elements of ARRI Image Science are being integrated into a consumer device. Dr. Benedict von Lindiner, VP at ARRI, said the goal is to bring a true cinematic aesthetic, such as natural color, gentle highlight, roll-off, and a sense of depth to shooting within Honor's smartphone. Honor also made a humanoid robot companion for its robot phone. The bot took to the stage alongside the robot phone, danced alongside human dancers, did a backflip, and shook hands with CEO James Lee.

6:08It didn't say a thing, but fortunately during some on-the-reels banter between the robot, robot phone, and Honor's CEO, the robot phone was particularly chatty. Like the many humanoid robots we've reported on and seen in person, Honor hopes to put it to work in both industrial and domestic settings, pitching it as a central part of the company's multi-million dollar push into AI. For now, it's being called Honor Robot. Thanks for listening to the show. Make sure to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Today's show feature journal is invited by gadget contributor Matt Smith and was produced by SpokenLayer. I'm Imran Sheik and we'll talk more tomorrow. SpokenLayer