This $800 jumping robot camera dog fills me with excitement

What if you had that drone he wasn’t An annoying fly, that people wanted to shake – but a cute dog that runs and jumps? What if it could do tricks on the law, and film yours tricks as well? What if it could come back after an apparent crash, many times in a row?

The first time I saw Ben on InstagramI immediately thought it was AI video slop. Indeed shopping robots are not smart and fast in 2026? Then I took the real robot for a spin. The truth is, Beni needs a job. But my first two-hour show was so much fun, I want it for myself.

For approx $600 on Kickstarter today or $800 wholesale, from Shenzhen Mondo Robotics is selling the dream of a two-legged robot dog that follows you or your pet around. It says Beni can travel down a road at about 18 miles per hour, jump up to 10 inches in the air, jump stairs, and stay for 1.5 hours on a charge, recording and editing in 4K30 HDR (or 3K60, or 1080p100) on the go.

You can control it with one or two buttons in the app, or the slider that is built into its controls that can be attached to your wrist like a watch. Or, just set it to follow you from behind, to the side, or to circle around like a drone.

I couldn’t test it all in one afternoon, and I have doubts about the “only” part if it wants to ship this fall. In my first demo, I had to activate its tracking mechanisms, and the Beni’s twin 150-degree camera and UWB wrist tracker weren’t enough to keep it from going around corners, hitting walls, or running into my foot while trying to keep up with my kick scooter. (It worked really well when I just walked the streets of Oakland.)

But I was on the ground and how stable and robust the bot is. It follows me down several flights of stairs, and even though I repeatedly and purposely chase it into walls and out of lines, it always bounces back without breaking too much. And yes, it can jump if it has a pear Speed ​​Racer Cars! I am therefore entertainment.

The trick is the legs. Motors in the shoulders push the lower legs down, while spring-loaded cylinders absorb shock. When my beni lands after this spectacular jump, it stays on its feet – but even if it doesn’t, it immediately recovers by turning its legs so its wheeled feet are back under its body. Check out my video embedded in this article to see how much Beni beat and got back up!

Beni has it just enough personality that I felt a little bad as I punched it into all those walls. You can hold it to your head, and it will jump or shake you or shake you while shining a bright light (about 37 lux, these are not headlights) Wall-E– good binocular vision.

The fact that it can looking with his head without turning his body it also helps Beni look more alive – and allows Mondo to get away with only two sensors pointing forward when he’s shooting you from the side. There is also a setting in the app that allows Beni to tilt his head backwards so he can take pictures of you from the front, although I didn’t have time to try it.

On the back, Beni has a large 31 watt adjustable battery with a power button, a microSD slot to expand beyond its 32GB of storage, and a hidden USB-C port above the battery for charging and data transfer.

The movable orange ears aren’t just for you to pull at different angles to give your dog different looks – you can loosen the nubs under each of them to reveal three 1/4-inch threads for attaching photo/video equipment. You can also replace the inner outer wheels with a pinch, although the original kit only comes with one set.

There are currently two additional power levels for future proofing, including four on the top that will allow Mondo to add a foot pedal for your pets, and two on the bottom that will allow for future boarding and charging of your home. Mondo says it will release a 4G dongle in China that plugs into a USB-C port, so users can control it remotely, and it also plans to offer 3D printing files for additional cameras and weapons, like this:

It looks like there is some depth planned in the app for power users, too. Mondo marketing director Cody Skene and creative director Ryo Miyamoto show me how to change the height of Beni’s ride, the height of his camera and the level of his stability, how quickly Beni moves and turns, even the angles of his decorations.

And even though Mondo doesn’t make a controller of its own, Miyamoto shows me how Beni can work with third-party controllers, and provides me with a multi-fuel controller and Xreal lenses that he developed for Mondo’s software to control FPV. He says it’s a lot more fun with the Logitech G29 speed wheel he has at home, saying it can connect to a phone, and log into the Mondo app, as long as you have a way to call. He has a big battery outside of it.

This is a Kickstarter project from scratch, so the usual warning applies: it’s possible that it won’t ship, or won’t ship to you, sticking to certifications or customs like other projects. Although this is not a flying drone, it comes from the old DJI, although Skene assures me that the company has no other connection to DJI and its robot is made in-house. He says he is confident Beni will ship this fall.

After a few hours with Beni, my takeaway is this: even if it doesn’t fulfill my dream of tracking as far as its videos show, it’s not like many other companies are making a control toy, self-control, R/C jump and 4K camera that my kids want to do. If there isn’t another horrible mistake in the making, this is going on my Christmas list.