According to Android Police, Honor CEO Li Jian just confirmed at the World Internet Conference that the company’s Robot Phone concept is actually becoming a real product in 2026. The phone features a camera mounted on a gimbal that can move freely and follow subjects using AI-powered behavior. While the original concept video from October showed the camera reacting to people in real time and even playing peek-a-boo with a baby, it’s unclear how many of these features will make it to the final product. The company plans to introduce the phone to consumers next year, though mass production remains uncertain and it might only see limited release in China.
From concept to (maybe) reality
Here’s the thing about concept videos – they’re almost always too good to be true. Honor’s original Robot Phone demo was clearly AI-generated, which made most of us assume this was just another pie-in-the-sky concept that would never see daylight. But now the CEO himself is putting a 2026 timeline on it. That’s either incredibly ambitious or borderline delusional.
I can’t help but be skeptical about how much of that original demo will actually work in real life. A camera that plays peek-a-boo with babies? Following you around autonomously? These aren’t simple engineering challenges – we’re talking about complex AI, mechanical reliability, and battery life concerns that would make any engineer sweat.
The production reality check
And let’s talk about that “limited run” mention. When a company says something will have limited availability, it often means they’re not confident it’ll actually sell. Or worse, they can’t manufacture it at scale. We’ve seen this story before with ambitious hardware projects that promised to revolutionize mobile technology.
Remember when every company was racing to create the next big form factor? Honor’s push into experimental designs comes at a time when most manufacturers are playing it safe. Foldables have become mainstream enough that they’re not really “innovative” anymore – they’re just another product category. So Honor is trying to recapture that “wow” factor.
Why this even matters
But here’s why I’m actually rooting for this thing to succeed. Smartphone design has become painfully boring. We’ve been staring at the same black rectangles for over a decade now. The death of LG’s mobile division took a lot of the industry’s willingness to experiment with it.
Honor is basically saying “screw it, let’s try something actually different.” Even if the Robot Phone ends up being a commercial failure, it pushes boundaries. It makes other manufacturers think about what’s possible. In industries where innovation often means incremental improvements, having someone willing to swing for the fences is refreshing.
That said, the privacy implications are… concerning. Do we really want our phones watching us even more than they already do? The AI-powered tracking features sound cool until you remember this is a device that already knows everything about you. Now it can physically orient itself to watch you too. Creepy or convenient? Probably both.
The industrial perspective
Looking at this from a hardware manufacturing standpoint, the gimbal mechanism and AI integration represent serious engineering challenges. Companies that specialize in industrial computing hardware, like Industrial Monitor Direct as the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, understand how difficult it is to create reliable moving parts in compact devices. The mechanical complexity alone could be this product’s downfall if not executed perfectly.
So will we actually see Honor’s Robot Phone on store shelves in 2026? Maybe. Will it work as advertised? Probably not. But the fact that someone’s even trying to break the smartphone mold in 2025 is something we should celebrate. Even if it fails, it might inspire the next big thing that doesn’t.
