FCC blocks new Chinese robot models from the US — Unitree's whole current lineup is grandfathered in
On July 28 the FCC added “foreign-produced advanced robotic devices” — humanoid robots, quadrupeds and connected power inverters — to its Covered List, the same mechanism previously used against Huawei and ZTE telecom gear. Any new model that needs FCC equipment authorization to be imported, marketed or sold in the US must now clear a national-security review; officials cited data-privacy and backdoor concerns, including issues documented on hardware already deployed at MIT, Princeton and Carnegie Mellon.
The detail that matters for buyers: this is not a recall. It blocks fresh equipment authorizations going forward and does not touch models that were already authorized. Unitree, the manufacturer most exposed to the rule, had quietly cleared its entire current lineup in the weeks before the deadline — the G1 back in March 2025, the R1 on June 22, and the H2/A2 on June 30, five weeks before the Covered List took effect. Every Unitree humanoid and quadruped we track, including the H1, B2 and Go2, remains legally sellable in the US today, and already-authorized units keep receiving software and security updates under an FCC waiver through at least January 2029.
What changes is the next model, not this one. Unitree and every other Chinese manufacturer in our index — a category that until now shipped new hardware to the US on a roughly quarterly cycle — now needs a case-by-case federal sign-off before a successor model can legally enter the country. That is real friction for a market that has been resetting prices and specs every few months; expect the first visible effect to be slower US launches rather than price changes on gear that’s already on sale.
We track availability, not politics: nothing in our index changes today, but we’ll flag it immediately if any currently-listed model loses its authorization or a new one gets blocked at the border.
Sources
Primary sources referenced in this article. Prices in the tables come from the live index and carry their own as-of dates.
- Unitree Robotics: Unitree G1 — official store page (shop.unitree.com)
- Unitree Robotics: Unitree R1 — official store page (shop.unitree.com)
- Unitree Robotics: Unitree H1 — official store page (shop.unitree.com)
- Unitree Robotics: Unitree Go2 — official store page (shop.unitree.com)