Mondo Robotics Beni Review: Good Tiny Robot Camera Bones, But Not Quite Great

When I first saw a video of Modo Robotics's Beni robot, I didn't really know what to make of it. I just knew that I wanted to play with it. It's adorable. But I wasn't sure that was enough. Adorable is great, but how functional it is becomes a much more important question.

I spent a good amount of time with Beni playing with it to see if I could figure out who this was for. As it turns out, I should have paid closer attention to that first video I watched, because it told me then and there, but there's more.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that this is simultaneously a fun and fundamentally flawed robot. It's still adorable, it does fun little tricks, is easy to set up and control, but its main job has a major shortcoming that absolutely has to be addressed before I can recommend it. For now, I've been using Mondo Robotic's Beni robot for a few weeks, and this is my review.

Right off the bat, it's important to note that Beni is (supposed to be) a finished product. This isn't some Kickstarter vaporware that will never see the light of day. I don't write about products unless it is sitting on my desk and I've used it quite a bit. So, Beni exists.

I've had the robot for several weeks now, but a heavy travel schedule has prevented me from giving the robot the time needed to learn about it. The Kickstarter has been ongoing for several weeks as well. If you were to preorder one today, you would be considered a late pledge; sorry about that.

Of course, it's also worth mentioning that since this is a Kickstarter, shipping times can get thrown off by various things. By their very nature, Kickstarter campaigns come with low numbers of units ordered, and other supply line constraints that can impact when a product is actually delivered, so again, bear that in mind.

Beni is a cute little bipedal robot that is designed to capture you when you're active and record it. It has a built-in camera, sensors, and even lights in its eyes to make sure it can keep track of you. The robot is self-balancing and self-correcting and it can roll along and track subjects designated in the app — more on that in a moment.

Additionally, the robot can perform neat tricks, like flips on command. When you tap a button in the app, the robot can flip forward, backward or to either side. The app also allows you to remote control the robot so you can drive it around and aim the camera's tilt — it's all a lot of fun. Where the robot shines is when you use it to track sports, and to an extent that is also its Achilles heel. But there are certain aspects of this that are important to take into consideration.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the obstacle avoidance of this robot absolutely sucks. There's no way I can sugar coat this; obstacle avoidance is bad. It's so bad, I had to double check to make sure the robot actually had obstacle avoidance. Honestly, if it didn't, that changes the tone of this review. But this is a case where the robot has one job, and it simply doesn't do it.

My initial testing of the robot happened in my living room which, because of the aforementioned travel schedule, is not tidy at the moment. This made it difficult for humans to navigate the room, let alone a robot. So I took it outside.

My backyard is not complicated. There's a tree in the middle of it, and a hill, but generally it's a pretty open space. So, when I told Beni to track my dog walking around the yard, it did — until the dog went around the tree, and Beni completely lost the tracking. This happened time and again. I even asked Beni to track me and deliberately walked slowly, and it still lost me.

Further, I asked Beni to track me walking through a gate in my fence. As I walked through, Beni rolled right up to the fence, left of the gate, and lost me. In a world of AI, Beni is not smart.

I recently reviewed the Segway Mx G3 scooter — still one of my favorite devices I've reviewed this year — so I got that out and took Beni out in front of my house, and that's where Beni shined. Beni maxes out in speed at about 10mph, which is the Eco setting on the scooter, so that's where I kept things.

Once I got out into the open street, Beni was able to zip alongside and behind me for quite a while. I spent the better part of an hour zipping all around my neighborhood with Beni trailing along behind me, and it was lovely. Of course, then, I had to test out my theory.

It was trash day, so a few of my neighbors had their cans out on the road. So, I set Beni up to zip alongside me and gradually moved closer to the side of the road. Sure enough, without hesitating, Beni drove right into a can with a resounding thunk.

Once I stopped laughing, I tried it again. This time, I nudged Beni over toward the side of the road until it tripped itself up on the curb and rolled. In Beni's defense, it got itself back up and stood there waiting for me to come back. It even managed to plop down the curb without losing its balance. But that obstacle avoidance is nowhere to be found.

If you go to Mondo's website, you'll see the same video I did (also shown embedded below this paragraph). Specifically, the video is of people running through an open field, or playing tennis, or following you around at a skate park. All of these are scenarios without obstacles. There is one part of the video where two Beni robots leap over a skateboard, presumably while tracking a subject. I could not replicate that at all — and I tried.

I tried to get Beni to move around an obstacle or even leap over it, and it just never did. I have to give the robot credit though — it can handle drops and terrain pretty handily. My back deck as a nine-inch step and Beni rolled right off of that several times and never lost a beat after it landed. When it rolled up onto the curb, it quickly corrected itself. It is able to roll through my backyard and its uneven terrain really — surprisingly — well. It's just that obstacle avoidance that is an absolute train wreck.

So if you're on a tennis court, or a soccer field, or another patch of open ground, you're golden. But if you introduce even the slightest obstacle to your path, you're going to get frustrated. Honestly, it's probably better if you just assume it won't avoid anything and be pleasantly surprised.

The video above shows some clips recorded by Beni. The camera is really just okay. I didn't do any nighttime testing with the robot, but during the day the camera was basically fine. It's a tad grainy in the dark areas, and a little jumpy when Beni is rolling over rough terrain — obviously. Actually the robot does a decent job of stabilization, so well played on that account.

Mostly, the video is rather stark — there's not a lot of post-processing going on there, which some artists may prefer. Personally, being a phone guy, I'm so used to the amount of post-processing that most companies put into their video capture, that the lack is rather stunning — but not necessarily in a good way. Overall, I don't dislike the footage, but it just looks a bit flat. I wouldn't mind a little bit of HDR processing, considering much of the footage the robot captures will be facing the bright sky.

That's also another thing that's worth mentioning — this is a nice little camera, as long as you don't mind all of your footage being shot from four inches off the ground. I will be the first to admit I am not a creative film maker, but I can't think of a lot of videos I would like to have shot from that perspective. For my dog who is six inches tall at the shoulder, it works. But for my six-foot tall frame, I'm not so sure it works all that well.

Overall, I found Beni to be surprising in both good and bad ways. I can't think of a lot of situations where I might want to shoot from Beni's perspective. When I head out on a scooter, or an ebike, I can see if, but I can't think of many times that I'll want to video myself riding a bike or a scooter.

Beni is fun to drive around. It can hop over obstacles (when piloted manually) and do fun little flips, which is nice, but that takes us to the price. Is this robot which is fairly niche worth $599 or more? I'm not so sure. If you're a person who plays a lot of individual sports — tennis, skateboarding, basketball shooting, or something like that, or if you shoot a lot of video with your pets, then I could see this being a fun addition to the gym bag. But it's hard to see other people getting a lot of use out of it. That could very well be a lack of imagination on my part.

But obstacle avoidance is a major downside to this device. If Mondo can fix that, it will certainly be worth more, but until then, it's hard to recommend.