This $800 jumping robotic dog filled me with joy

What if you had a drone that It wasn’t An annoying buzzing fly that people wanted to hit, but a cute dog running and jumping? What if he could do tricks on demand, and film for you Tricks as well? What if he could return to his normal state after getting into a bad-looking accident dozens of times in a row?

First time I saw brown on InstagramI immediately thought it was an AI ramp video. Consumer robots certainly won’t be as smart and agile in 2026? Then I took the real robot for a spin. The truth is, Benny needs a job. But the first two-hour demo was so much fun, I desperately want to get one for myself.

For approx $600 on Kickstarter today Or $800 full retail, and is based in Shenzhen Mondo Robots It is selling the dream of a bipedal robot dog that automatically follows you or your pet. It claims the Beni can hit the road at about 18 miles per hour, jump up to 10 inches in the air, jump stairs, stay up for up to 1.5 hours on a charge, and shoot and edit in ultra-steady 4K30 HDR (or 3K60, or 1080p100) as it goes.

You can control it using one or two virtual joysticks in the app, or the joystick built into its bundled controller that can optionally be strapped to your wrist like a watch. Or just set it to follow you from behind, side, or circle around you like a drone.

I wasn’t able to test it all out in an afternoon, and I have my doubts about the “automatic” part if it’s meant to ship this fall. In my early demo, I had to manually activate the tracking modes, and the Beni’s dual 150-degree obstacle avoidance cameras and UWB wrist tracker weren’t enough to keep it from cutting corners, hitting walls, or even bumping into my feet while I tried to keep up with my kick scooter. (It was much better when I simply walked the streets of downtown Oakland.)

But I was Flooring By how stable and durable this robot really is. He followed me down several flights of stairs, and even when I repeatedly and deliberately bumped him against walls and ledges, he always bounced back with nothing more than a deep scuff. And yes, he can really jump like he has a pair of these Automatic cranes for Speed ​​Racer! that it So Hazar.

The trick is the legs. Actuators in the shoulders push the lower legs down, while spring-filled cylindrical joints absorb the shock. When Benny lands after this amazing jump, he stays on his feet – but even when that doesn’t happen, he instantly recovers by rotating those legs to bring his wheeled feet back under his body. Check out the video embedded in this story to see how much beating Benny can take and still get back up!

I got penny only Personal enough that I felt a little bad when I ran into all those walls. You can pet him on the head, and he’ll jump, shake, or coo at you while flashing colorful light (about 37 lux, these aren’t headlights) from his perch. WALL-E– Binocular eyes.

The fact that he can He looks with his head without turning his body It also helps make Beni appear alive — and theoretically allows Mondo to escape using just two obstacle-avoidance sensors that point forward when it’s shooting you from the side. There’s also a setting in the app that allows Beni to rotate his head all the way back so he can film you from the front, though I didn’t have time to try that.

On the back, the Beni has a large, swappable 31Wh battery with an integrated power button, a covered microSD slot for expansion beyond the 32GB of built-in storage, and a USB-C port hidden above the battery for charging and data transfer.

The movable orange ears aren’t just so you can point them at different angles to give your dog a different look – you can unscrew the protrusions on the bottom of each to expose 1/4-inch tripod threads for attaching standard photo/video accessories. You can also replace the outer wheels with the inner wheels with one push, although the basic kit only comes with one set.

There are also currently two additional sets of future-proofing electrical connection points, including four on top that could help Mondo add a treat toy for your pets, and two on the bottom that could enable a future docking and charging station for your home. Mondo says it will launch a 4G dongle in China that plugs into a USB-C port, so users there can drive it remotely, and it also plans to provide 3D printer files for additional mounts for cameras and body armor, like this one:

There seems to be depth planned into the app for power users as well. Mondo Marketing Director Cody Skinny and Creative Director Ryo Miyamoto showed me how you can adjust Beni’s ride height, the pitch and stability of the camera, how fast Beni moves and turns, and even the curves of his joysticks.

And while Mondo doesn’t necessarily make a full-fledged dual-stick controller of its own, Miyamoto showed me how Beni can work with third-party controllers as well, handing me a full-fat racing transmitter and a pair of Xreal goggles that he outfitted for Mondo’s FPV control app. He says it’s even more fun with the Logitech G29 racing wheel he’s got at home, saying it can be plugged directly into the phone, and thus into the Mondo app, as long as you have a way to operate it. It has a large external battery for it.

This is a Kickstarter project from a relatively unknown startup, so the usual caveats apply: it’s always possible that it will never ship, will never be shipped to you, or get stuck in certifications or customs limbo as some projects do. Although this is not a drone, it comes from DJI veterans, although Skin assured me that the company has no other connection to DJI and that its robot is manufactured entirely in-house. He says he’s confident Penny will ship this fall.

After a few hours with Beni, my conclusion is this: Even if it doesn’t fulfill the “follow me” dream to the degree that the marketing videos show, it’s not like many other companies are building a self-balancing, self-correcting, jumping R/C toy with a built-in 4K camera that my kids will want to pet. If there isn’t a fatal flaw by the time it reaches production, this will be on my Christmas wish list.