Realbotix is taking Echo deposits. The 2027 companion robots remain preorders.

What they said

Realbotix has opened reservations for Echo, a companion-robot line it presents for education, wellness, hospitality, and personal interaction. The company’s order site lists a $199 deposit, applied toward purchase, for either a tabletop Echo or a full-body Echo. The tabletop version is listed at $11,950 plus a monthly AI subscription; the full-body version is listed at $59,950 plus that subscription.

The company says it will ship 225 tabletop units and 25 full-body units in 2027. That makes the announcement a preorder, not a shipped product. A reservation page and a stated production run are useful facts, but neither shows that ordinary customers have received an Echo, lived with it, or tested its reliability outside a controlled setting.

Realbotix’s October 26 release frames the lineup around companionship, education, and wellness. It describes the tabletop model as a 17-degree-of-freedom desktop robot and the larger model as a 39-degree-of-freedom humanoid. The company also says buyers can choose among four named characters.

What is verified

There is a live consumer-facing reservation page. It states the deposit amount, base prices, unit counts, approximate dimensions and weights, and the requirement for a monthly AI subscription. The page separately shows 225 tabletop and 25 full-body robots under “Units in 2027.”

Those figures broadly match AI Insider’s October 26 report, which says the company plans an initial run of 250 robots and describes the same two model prices. The report also identifies the deposit as a way to reserve a place in that production run.

Realbotix is therefore offering a specific purchase path, rather than merely showing a concept. But the verifiable offer is narrower than the marketing category suggests. A deposit reserves priority for an intended 2027 delivery. It is not evidence of current household use, independently measured task performance, or a completed delivery program.

What is missing

The reservation page does not establish how Echo performs in an occupied home over weeks or months. There is no published independent test showing the exact models handling domestic tasks, recovering from misunderstandings, or operating safely around children, pets, clutter, and changing routines. The claims about companionship, education, and wellness are intended-use statements from the seller.

Important purchase details also deserve a careful read before anyone treats the base price as the total cost. Realbotix says an AI subscription is required, but the accessed product page does not state the subscription price in the material reviewed for this story. It also does not provide a public, task-by-task account of what is included at each tier.

The company lists approximate hardware specifications, but specifications do not answer the practical questions. Can the full-body model navigate a typical home without a remote operator? What does it do when its vision system is uncertain? How does it handle a failed interaction or a network outage? Neither the product page nor the release supplies independent evidence for those everyday cases.

What it means for a home robot

Echo is a clearer consumer offer than many humanoid announcements because it has a deposit, model names, prices, and a stated production count. It may suit buyers who understand that they are placing an early reservation for a social robot, not buying a demonstrated household helper.

For a household, the relevant distinction is between social interaction and autonomous physical work. The tabletop Echo is not presented as a mobile domestic worker. The full-body version has a humanoid form and 39 degrees of freedom, but Realbotix has not published the kind of repeatable home-task evidence that would show it can reliably clean, organize, cook, or provide unsupervised assistance.

Prospective buyers should ask for the complete subscription terms, cancellation and refund terms for the deposit, service and repair arrangements, privacy practices for conversational and vision data, and evidence from non-company homes. They should also ask what level of human supervision is expected. Those answers matter more than a character name or a base price.

For now, the honest label is preorder. Realbotix is taking deposits for a limited 2027 run. Until deliveries and independent real-world use are documented, Echo is a future consumer robot offer rather than proof that a capable home humanoid has arrived.