Huawei spin-off Honor has launched a camera with an AI-powered, gimbal-mounted camera that unfolds from the back of the device, as it seeks to transform itself into an “embodied AI” company.

The Robot Phone was made available to buyers in mainland China on Wednesday for 9,999 yuan (£1,100).

While Honor sells devices in markets including the UK and the EU, it hasn’t yet announced an international launch for the Robot Phone, which it began teasing last October and showed a prototype of at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year.

Image credit: Honor Robotic device

The Robot Phone is designed to break the mould of nearly identical-looking rectangular smartphones, at a time when the sector has stagnated and is expecting a record drop in sales, partly due to soaring memory costs that have forced price increases.

By contrast, consumers have shown strong interest in gimbal cameras from the likes of DJI or Insta360, and the Robot Phone integrates such features into its mechanised robot eye.

The company says it developed its own tiny motor for the gimbal mechanism, because available devices were too large.

Image credit: Honor

Its gimbal is 65 percent smaller than others on the market, Honor says, enabling the entire mechanism to collapse into the back of a 9.59 mm thick smartphone, only slightly thicker than the iPhone 17 Pro at 8.75 mm.

The camera can be manipulated with on-screen controls, by voice commands, or can be set to track objects in action shots.

Image credit: Honor AI interactions

For video calls, a user can set it on a provided stand and the camera will follow them as they move around the room.

Going with the theme of embodied AI, the camera can also serve as the eyes of Honor’s built-in Yoyo assistant, interacting with the user with nods and other movements, pretending to be angry or happy and making movements that express the mood.

OpenAI is reportedly planning a doughnut-shaped smart speaker linked to ChatGPT that also includes moving parts that interact with the user.

Honor, which has struggled against smartphone rivals in the mainland China market, said at MWC it would invest $10 billion (£7.4bn) over the next five years in its AI transformation, and introduced a humanoid robot at the event that can act as a home assistant and companion.

Image credit: Honor