Chinese sex doll maker Evas Doll has taken a step toward a properly walking sex robot, with motorized legs that move on voice command and are billed as having six degrees of freedom (6DoF).
The company, which is based in Dongguan in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, only offers the leg motors on its 170cm and 182cm models. Retailer ULoversDoll, which announced the feature on September 2, lists one 170cm model with the system fitted, Yilin.A, at $2,999 (discounted to $2,399 at the time of writing).
Some sex dolls and robots have moving hips, eyes and mouths, and sometimes artificial vaginas that contract and heat up. It’s unusual for them to have any significant limb movement, though. Users often have to change arm and leg positions by manually moving limbs that have heavy internal metal skeletons.
To activate a leg movement on a new Evas Doll humanoid, you first say the wake word “Xiaoyi”, then one of the set voice commands, such as “lift left leg”. This prompts the leg to move and a control box to give vocal feedback. You have to leave about three seconds between commands, and wake the system again if it has been idle for more than a minute.
ULoversDoll’s guide to the system lists English commands for lifting or straightening each leg, spreading the legs apart, a straddle and “do the splits”, and says it understands Chinese too. Saying “That’s enough” stops the movement and slowly lowers both legs.
The six motors, four at the hips and two at the knees, add around 5.7 kilograms (about 12.5 pounds) to a doll’s weight, according to Evas Doll’s specifications. That’s about as heavy as a mid-weight bowling ball, so it doesn’t exactly make a doll more portable. The system also needs a wired power supply through an external adapter rather than a battery, and the joints go completely loose when the power is off.
You shouldn’t move the legs by hand while the system is switched on, because forcing the joints can damage the motors. ULoversDoll also recommends running the motors for about two hours at a time, warning that they may become “significantly hot” after around four.
Videos demonstrating the leg movements have been posted on Reddit, the ULoversDoll retail site and The Doll Forum (forum signup required to download the video). Evas Doll’s June demo shows the motors moving a bare doll skeleton rather than a finished silicone doll, although the company said at the time that it would share a video of the finished product.
Even the retailer isn’t calling it a sex robot. ULoversDoll said: “At its current stage, the system is limited to selected leg movements and should not be considered a complete sex robot. However, it demonstrates one possible direction for the development of increasingly automated and interactive sex dolls.”
Sophisticated sex robots that walk, talk and perform all manner of erotic acrobatics have long been a science fiction staple, but most commercial sex robots are more doll than robot. RealDoll founder Matt McMullen said in 2024 that full-body robots for home use were still several years away, citing the state of the technology, maintenance requirements and price points.
ULoversDoll added: “If motorized movement, sensors, voice interaction, AI, and other systems can eventually be integrated into a unified platform, future products could offer significantly broader levels of automation.
“For that reason, it is more accurate to view 6-DOF Joint Motor Commands as a specific step toward greater motorization and intelligent interaction, rather than describing it as a fully developed robotic system.”
As for walking, Evas Doll posted on The Doll Forum in June: “We are developing the autonomous walking function and are pushing forward with the development.” It also said it’s designing a version that can stand without a power supply, which tells you what the current one does when it’s unplugged.
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