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Unitree is bringing its R1 to international markets. It arrives with some aerobatic capabilities and an entry-level price, but the question of what you'd actually do with it remains open.

Listing consumer electronics on the internet's large ecommerce marketplaces is a key step in “democratizing” the products, allowing them to be purchased by anyone with just a click. It has happened to cars (in the United States, you can buy a Hyundai on Amazon), and now it's happening to humanoid robots .

The Chinese manufacturer Unitree Robotics , among the most active robot-makers in the field, is preparing to bring its most affordable model, the Unitree R1, to international markets through Alibaba Group's marketplace. According to reports in The South China Morning Post , the rollout will initially cover North America, Japan, Singapore, and Europe. There's no exact on-sale date for the robots yet, but the Post report says it will show up as soon as this week.

This is not the first time Unitree has used AliExpress as a global storefront. The company's G1 model , the more powerful and more expensive predecessor to the R1, is already listed at just under $19,000.

The G1 is already on sale on AliExpress.

It's as much of a symbolic step before as a commercial one; selling a humanoid robot on a global marketplace positions the product as easily attainable. This serves as a step toward normalization of the tech, which is still not widely adopted. The sale of the R1 simply lowers the threshold of access even further, and shifts humanoid robots from the territory of promise to that of concrete availability.

When it was announced last summer, the starting price of the R1 was 39,900 yuan, or about $5,900. Today, the basic version starts at 29,900 yuan, or about $4,370.