Alpha Robot Pro

What is the UBTech Alpha 1 Pro?

Take that cynical sneer off your face. Yes, it’s another humanoid robot that can’t make a cup of tea or take the bins out. If you’re looking for a domesticated automaton, go buy a Dyson 360 Eye. This robot is all about entertainment.

The Alpha 1 Pro has a body articulated via 16 motor servos – like joints with their corresponding muscles, but, y’know, machinery. That gives it a superb range of movement. It can dance, walk, play football and do kung-fu – but only when commanded via its companion app.

UBTech Alpha 1 Pro – Design and Features

The Alpha 1 Pro comes fully assembled and with minimal accessories in the box – just a mains charger and a Mini USB cable.

He’s a buff little fella, all puffed-out chest and broad shoulders, and looks much like the leaner brother of WowWee’s iconic Robosapien V2 from a decade ago. Or perhaps the scheming love-child of Honda Asimo. He’s a pretty generic-looking humanoid robot, in other words.

Alpha’s probably about as big as you’re expecting – certainly as I was expecting. He’s 40cm tall, and he weighs in at 1.65kg. As with most bipedal robots with a similar range of movement, he’s all floppy when he’s turned off and the servos are powered down. Don’t expect to be able to stand him up for display in his downtime.

There’s an awful lot of white plastic here, broken up only by the black plastic and silver metal of those 16 servos at all the joints. The eyes and ears house LEDs that indicate the Alpha’s status, as do all the servos.

Like the aforementioned Asimo, he’s got rather an unfortunate hunch. While Honda made a feature of this Quasimodo-ism on its experimental robot, making it look like some kind of jetpack, UBTech has just left the Alpha’s as an ugly lump.

Still, at least it’s an ugly lump with some purpose – it’s the only really safe place from which to pick up the Alpha, and it also houses the on/off button, Mini USB port and charging socket. Oh, and a big red button marked “Emergency Stop” which I’m too scared to press.

UBTech Alpha 1 Pro – Performance

Since the Alpha 1 Pro comes fully assembled, all that was required before getting it active was a charge. Considering it has a Mini USB port, I was a little surprised to find I couldn’t charge it via USB – that’s just for connecting to a computer. After a couple of hours plugged into the mains adapter, the charging light on the Alpha’s back had changed from red to green and he was good to go.

The first thing I did, as recommended in the instructions, was to try the demo mode. A quick double-tap of the on/off button sent the Alpha into a preprogrammed routine where he introduced himself, played some music, showed off his impressive balance and, er, danced to "Gangnam Style". Yeah. Seems like the sort of thing that’s just been added to get YouTube hits, but at least it shows off the Alpha’s speed of movement.

So, with that over, and since the Alpha can’t respond to voice commands or gestures, I downloaded the Alpha 1 control app.

The app is available for Android and iOS, and it feels a little underbaked. I had a few crashes with the Android version, and it just doesn’t feel as slick nor intuitive as it should. It’s essentially broken into two parts: Roles (or “Gamepad”) and Actions.