Astribot opens US orders for its $18,000 T1 under the FCC robot rule

Astribot, the Shenzhen robot maker registered in China as Stardust Intelligence, has opened US orders for its T1 humanoid at a starting price of $18,000, announced around IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh, which ran from September 27 to October 1. It is another sub-$20,000 Chinese robot offered to American buyers while the FCC will not authorize new foreign-made mobile robot models without conditional approval from the Department of War.

The T1 is a dual-arm upper body on a wheeled base, not a biped. Astribot gives it a height of about 1.55 metres, a weight of about 66 kg, 23 degrees of freedom excluding end effectors and a payload of up to 5 kg per arm, driven by the cable transmission the company also uses in its S1. It runs Astribot’s Lumo-2 model, and the company says US customers can order now with “immediate delivery available.”

Does the FCC robot rule apply to the Astribot T1?

On the text of the rule, it appears to. On July 28, 2026 the FCC added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to its Covered List. The FCC’s notice describes them as mobile robots “such as humanoids and quadrupeds,” but the underlying national security determination is not limited to legs. As summarised by law firm Pillsbury, it covers ground platforms capable of locomotion or autonomous movement that weigh more than 4.4 pounds and carry an environmental sensor, network connectivity of at least 200 kbps, and software for navigation, perception or remote command. A 66 kg wheeled robot that Astribot describes as supporting VR teleoperation and over-the-air updates fits those descriptions. Whether a product is “foreign-produced” turns on where it is made and its share of US components, not on the maker’s nationality; Astribot has not said where US units are built.

The rule does not ban every T1 sale. It is prospective: models that held FCC equipment authorization before July 28 can still be imported and sold. Other models need conditional approval from the Department of War, which requires ownership disclosure, a bill of materials and a time-bound plan for US manufacturing. Neither of the Astribot announcements we reviewed mentions FCC status, and a search of the fccid.io database on October 7 returned no filings under the Astribot name. That is not conclusive, since grants can be issued to another legal entity, but the “immediate delivery” claim rests on an authorization question the company has not answered publicly.

The nearest precedent is Korean. Rainbow Robotics’ RB-Y1, also a wheeled dual-arm robot, missed scheduled August and September US shipments while its maker waited for Department of War approval (see our FCC rule update).

How does $18,000 compare with other humanoids on sale in the US?

Against the prices in our humanoid price tracker (as of September 28, 2026), the T1 sits above Unitree’s G1 at $13,500 and the G1+ at $15,000, and below 1X’s NEO at $20,000, which is still a pre-order. The closest US-designed comparison is Feather, also a developer platform on a wheeled base, at a promotional $29,990. The T1 undercuts it by about $12,000.

The Chinese price is lower. Caixin reported that Astribot launched the T1 at home on May 27 from RMB 89,900. Astribot has not said whether the two prices cover the same configuration.

When the FCC acted, Interact Analysis’ Rueben Scriven argued the near-term effect would be limited because most Chinese humanoid makers had not yet entered the US market. Astribot is now testing that from the other side.

What comes with the robot?

Astribot sells the T1 as a stack: the Lumo-2 model, Astribot OS, and an SDK and API for joint, motion and sensor access. Its showcase demonstration had the robot pack miscellaneous items into a backpack on its own; the announcement gave no success rate, and Astribot says “more complex household capabilities require additional training.” The T1 does not learn in real time. Astribot curates data from operation and teleoperation, retrains, and pushes updates over the air or on site.

That data loop is the feature the FCC’s national-security case was written around: networked, sensor-rich machines whose software is maintained from abroad. The first public sign of whether US buyers can take delivery will be an FCC grant or a Department of War approval. Neither had been reported as of October 7.