Chunshuitang launches a $2,100 realistic humanoid companion robot with emotional interaction, memory, and tactile feedback, aiming to make companionship accessible.
When many people first hear about "lifelike humanoid companion robots," their immediate reaction is:
This must be very expensive. Over a hundred thousand yuan? Several hundred thousand? Or even more? That assumption isn't surprising. In the past, robots—especially lifelike humanoid ones—were always showcased at press conferences, in exhibition halls, in sci-fi movies, and within high-end tech narratives. They represent the future, represent technology, and represent what the capital market dreams of—but they also represent a price tag that makes it hard for an average person to actually bring one home. That's exactly the problem Chunshuitang's lifelike humanoid companion robot aims to solve.
Chunshuitang has made a functional lifelike humanoid companion robot available at the 15,000-yuan tier: 160 cm height, starting at 15,800 yuan. 165 cm height, starting at 16,300 yuan. 170 cm height, starting at 16,800 yuan. Chunshuitang's companion robots are now available for pre-order on Tmall and JD.com, with batch deliveries starting August 1. This isn't a low-price, low-spec approach. This is a high-tech popularization strategy.
If companion robots were stuck in the hundred-thousand-yuan range or higher, they would likely remain exclusive high-tech toys for a select few. People who genuinely need companionship aren't necessarily high-income earners. Many who live alone long-term, experience periodic loneliness, or lack consistent emotional responses are exactly the ones who need a consumer-grade product they can take home, use over the long term, and feel a sense of companionship from in daily life. What Chunshuitang wants to do isn't to make users gaze in awe at a futuristic concept, but to make them seriously consider for the first time: Could I bring home a companion robot that can see me, proactively keep me company, respond to me, and remember me?
At the 15,000-yuan tier, you're not getting an ordinary silicone doll
Chunshuitang's companion robot features a lifelike humanoid body, a temperature system, 81 passive degrees of freedom, tactile feedback, 5 tactile sensors, 16 active degrees of freedom in the head for expressive facial movements, binocular vision, dual microphones, a multimodal emotional large model, a companion AI agent, short- and long-term memory, and proactive conversation logic. She isn't just for chatting. If it were only about chatting, chat apps on your phone would be enough; if it were just a static body, an ordinary silicone doll would suffice. What Chunshuitang's companion robot truly aims to do is combine language, vision, memory, expressions, body temperature, tactile feedback, body posture, and proactive responses into an embodied companionship experience. She can see you. She can proactively chat with you. She can respond to you. She can remember you. She can truly accompany you on both emotional and physical levels.
Chunshuitang's companion robot uses a multimodal emotional large model combined with a companion AI agent. She doesn't just passively answer questions; she can understand the current context through vision, voice, touch, posture, time, and historical memory, determining whether it's appropriate to initiate conversation, what tone to use, and what to talk about. When you come back to your room, she can see you; when you've been silent for a long time, she can proactively greet you; when you engage in tactile interaction, she can provide physical feedback; when you mention something important, she can continue to remember it in future conversations; when you establish consistent nicknames, preferences, and ways of interacting, she doesn't start over like it's the first time she's met you every day. This is what Chunshuitang calls a
two-way proactive sense of companionship.
To handle extensive local computing, enable fully local visual processing without internet connection to protect user privacy, and store memory data locally for privacy, Chunshuitang's companion robot uses a high-computing-power RK3576 chip with 8+64G large-capacity memory, providing a stable local hardware foundation for multimodal perception, proactive interaction, device status assessment, and long-term memory. She isn't meant to have real human emotions, but rather to establish relationship continuity through long-term interaction. A device that has to get to know you anew every day can hardly be a companion. A presence that gradually remembers you, continues with you, responds to changes in your life, and proactively chats with you at the right moments comes much closer to true companionship.
Why can Chunshuitang offer this product at the 15,000-yuan tier?
First, Chunshuitang was founded in 2003 and has long been dedicated to the field of adult intimate relationships. The company better understands what users truly need and avoids piling on features that are irrelevant to the companionship experience. Second, Chunshuitang began developing silicone dolls in 2017 and started mass production in August 2020, accumulating nine years of experience with lifelike humanoid bodies. Facial sculpting, body sculpting, skin texture, makeup styling, skin feel, and product reliability are things that can't be quickly achieved just by throwing specs at a problem. Third, Chunshuitang's wholly owned subsidiary, Elephant Antai, has been developing robotics technology for the past six years, and its lifelike humanoid commercial service robots achieved mature mass production and sales in 2025, with that proven technology now being passed down to Chunshuitang's companion robot. Fourth, Chunshuitang has integrated R&D, manufacturing, and sales capabilities. The body, appearance, customer service, after-sales support, e-commerce conversion, and user feedback all form a closed loop within Chunshuitang's own system. Fifth, Chunshuitang has chosen a clearer product path: Focus on companionship first, not household chores. She won't walk on her own, cook, sweep floors, or handle complex household tasks. Instead, she prioritizes the core elements of a companion experience—body, temperature, expressions, vision, voice, memory, tactile feedback, proactive responses, and privacy protection.
Expressions matter most of all
The 16 active degrees of freedom on Chunshuitang's companion robot are dedicated specifically to head and facial expression rendering. That's because what first wins users over isn't complex movements, but whether she has natural facial expressions when she looks at you, proactively talks to you, and responds to you. With expressions, she feels alive. With exceptional facial sculpting, she feels like a real partner. With a stable and natural expression system, companionship can evolve from "machine responses" to "someone responding." In body sculpting, body painting, and soft tactile feel, Chunshuitang has leveraged nine years of lifelike humanoid body experience to make body proportions, skin layering, and touch feel closer to a real person.
She isn't all-purpose. But she's learned to keep you company first. That's what the 15,000-yuan tier means. It's not about simply discounting a hundred-thousand-yuan robot. It's about redefining what tasks a companion robot should accomplish first. Many people used to think companion robots were out of reach for the average person. Chunshuitang wants to prove that, for users with genuine, strong needs, lifelike humanoid companion robots can start entering daily life at the 15,000-yuan tier.
Chunshuitang also doesn't define its companion robots as a substitute for one specific gender. The company plans to launch a male companion robot for the female market in the fourth quarter, and also plans to develop elderly-care companion robots in the future, with features like safety monitoring and health reminders for the senior emotional companionship market. Not everyone needs her. But those who do shouldn't have to keep admiring futuristic technology from a distance forever.