Honor’s Robot Phone Demo At MWC 2026

In case you missed its debut at CES earlier this 12 months, the Honor Robotic Telephone additionally appeared at Cell World Congress 2026 in Barcelona.

The telephone was showcased together with Honor’s new star foldable, the Honor Magic V6, some tablets and laptops. In addition to having a bipedal robotic pull off a backflip on stage, Honor used its fundamental keynote to present everybody a deeper have a look at its upcoming Robotic Telephone, earlier than working demos with the gadget on the present flooring.

At first look, the Robotic Telephone – which Honor frames as a “new species of smartphone” – appears to be like like a traditional sweet bar telephone, however slide over a panel on the again and also you’ll discover a digital camera on a three-axis gimbal neatly tucked away.

To completely embrace its moniker, Honor has gone a step additional and infused this motorised digital camera with character, because of the gadget’s inbuilt AI assistant.

Though the items on the present flooring aren’t retail-ready, Honor CEO Jian Li confirmed the corporate’s plans to carry the Robotic Telephone to market within the second half of 2026. As for when, which areas, and the way a lot it may cost, that is still to be seen.

Whereas Honor wasn’t precisely passing Robotic Telephone samples round for folks to check out, it ran demo classes with its chipper new AI-driven robo-pal, and I took it for a spin.

Match verify

Alex Walker-Todd / Foundry

Essentially the most interactive side of the Robotic Telephone comes if you fireplace up its inbuilt AI assistant. All I needed to do was maintain my hand up in entrance of the telephone’s display, as if I had been waving “whats up”, and a chat session with the assistant began, whereas on the similar time unfolding its gimbal-mounted digital camera, in order that it might ‘see’ me.

As soon as the digital camera was deployed, a viewfinder appeared on display so I might see what the gimbal digital camera was taking a look at. As soon as it recognised me (seemingly the primary individual it spots in-frame when it powers on), slightly yellow ring appeared round my face within the viewfinder, after which the digital camera began monitoring my actions.

Although the telephone’s physique was static, the gimbal head allowed the deployable digital camera to comply with me round just about anyplace, utilizing its full vary of movement.

Paired to a Bluetooth microphone (to beat the noisy environment of the conference centre) I might ask it easy ‘sure’ or ‘no’ questions, and any on-screen response was paired with an enthusiastic nod or shake of the digital camera’s ‘head’.

Whereas the Robotic Telephone was taking a look at me, the demonstrator requested for its ideas on my outfit. Fortunately, after trying me up and down, the gimbal digital camera nodded positively, whereas the on-screen assistant not solely mentioned it preferred my outfit, however particularly which elements of it stood out, from my black-on-black base layer, to my olive shacket.

Do the Robotic

Alex Walker-Todd / Foundry

Whereas simply watching it unfold provides you a way of the liberty of motion of the Robotic Telephone’s digital camera ‘head’, I used to be given an additional demonstration.

I requested it to play some music. Think about Dragons’ Believer (successfully the soundtrack to Honor’s MWC sales space, contemplating what number of demos had been working concurrently) began up, and the little gimbal head started to excitedly tilt up and down, twist and even spin 360 levels by one axis, whereas panning on one other, all whereas conserving time with the music.

Once you’re completed conversing (or dancing) with Honor’s Robotic Telephone, all it’s a must to do is say “Bye” and the gimbal will straighten up, earlier than flipping again down into the recess at the back of the physique. You continue to need to manually slide the built-in cowl again over it.

The idea is that the ultimate retail mannequin will be capable of dance to any track you throw at it, however the library of songs the present idea might get down with is seemingly restricted to 5, for which it’s ‘rehearsed’ the choreography.

New cinematic video methods

Whereas chatting with the Robotic Telephone and watching it dance are enjoyable, novel methods to expertise bodily interactions with the on-device AI, strip away the anthropomorphism and also you’ve nonetheless received a telephone with an inbuilt three-axis gimbal, supporting a 200Mp digital camera. There’s nothing else prefer it.

You solely have to have a look at the success of the DJI Osmo Cell line throughout the creator neighborhood to know {that a} digital camera like this permits for impressively versatile artistic videography choices, ones that simply aren’t attainable with typical smartphone cameras.

One of the apparent benefits is stability, and Honor had each the Robotic Telephone and a traditional sweet bar smartphone bolted to a gyrating hexapod. As you may anticipate, though the our bodies of each telephones rolled round in sync, the footage captured by the Robotic Telephone was solidly locked on the topic, whereas the viewfinder of the opposite telephone resembled that docking scene from Interstellar.

That face-tracking trick talked about earlier works throughout the digital camera’s ‘Gimbal Mode’ too, which can be the place the Spinshot function is. With a faucet, you possibly can have the gimbal slowly rotate on its axis by 90 or 180 levels, permitting for single-handed cinematic digital camera strikes that may often require two palms or extra equipment to drag off.

A lot extra to return

At its MWC keynote, the corporate additionally introduced a “strategic technical collaboration” with famed cinematic digital camera maker ARRI, and whereas particulars on the character of the partnership remained restricted, the Robotic Telephone is the gadget that the businesses plan to make use of to showcase what they’ve been engaged on. We’ll simply have to attend to search out out what that’s.