There are hundreds of pet robots on the market. Some claim to dance alongside their owners, while others promise to communicate in intuitive, supportive ways. Truth be told, none has really lived up to the hype. Even promising prospects like VBOT remain stuck in pre-A funding, with no sign of a global release this year. But not everything in the pet robotics industry is gloomy. With the rise of AI, new startups are showing up with features we couldn’t have imagined a year ago. One interesting prospect in this category is Beni, an autonomous, all-terrain camera robot on wheels.
Mimicking the size and stature of a pet dog, the Beni camera robot is the brainchild of Mondo Robotics, a startup built by DJI and Tesla veterans. Currently the subject of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, the wheeled camera robot follows its owner around and films them in 4K without requiring a second person or a tripod.
Beni is built to trail a person or a dog through skate parks, tennis courts, hiking trails, and backyards, staying locked onto its subject using onboard tracking that runs without an internet connection. Owners can set it to follow from behind, ride alongside, or circle for a more dynamic angle. So if you’re a live streamer or TikToker struggling to find someone to hold the camera, Beni can be that friend.
Weighing less than 4 lbs, the robot can hit a top speed of 17.9 mph, fast enough to keep pace with a skateboarder or a dog sprinting across a park. It can also jump up to 10 inches to clear curbs and stair edges. We can’t vouch for that part firsthand, but The Verge’s Sean Hollister, who put Beni through a hands-on test, states, “I was floored by how stable and durable this bot truly is.”
That said, let’s get to the most important bit: the camera. PetaPixel, one of the first outlets to cover the story, reports that the built-in camera shoots 4K at 30fps, 3K at 60fps, and 1080p at 100fps for slow motion. It has electronic stabilization to smooth out the captured footage while rolling over grass or gravel. For storage, Beni relies on 32GB of internal memory with a microSD slot for additional storage.
On the design front, Beni ships with two sets of wheels. This includes quieter ones for indoor floors and treaded ones for outdoor terrain. It pairs over Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4, and battery life runs about 90 minutes per swappable pack. Though DJI veterans built it, the robot doesn’t feel anything like a drone, and that comes down to the personality Mondo Robotics has built into it.
The robot has color-changing eyes, nods and shakes its head, and responds to gestures through a wristwatch-style motion controller that also lets owners trigger jumps and photos without touching a phone. The companion app includes an Explore Mode for first-person driving, and a Game Mode built around a two-controller tug-of-war mechanic. Owners can also swap on ears, hats, and stickers to give the robot more character, a detail that pushes Beni toward companion territory rather than pure filming tool.
Mondo Robotics co-founder and CTO Shuo Yang, who previously worked on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program, said the “company wants robots to sit beside people in everyday life rather than staying hidden in warehouses.” That thinking shows up in how Beni is marketed, which is less as an industrial machine and more as a small, expressive sidekick that happens to carry a camera.
Also Read: Best Pet Robots and Emotional Companions at CES 2026
According to the company, an auto-editing feature called MondoCut picks strong clips from a session and stitches them into a shareable video. That processing runs on-device by default, though an optional AI editing mode routes through AWS with end-to-end encryption and only activates with explicit permission. On a little downside, Beni is not waterproof and should stay out of heavy rain or submersion.
Early bird pricing on Kickstarter starts at $549, a $250 discount off the eventual $799 retail price, and the campaign runs through early September. Mondo Robotics says shipping to backers should begin in October, with wider retail availability to follow.
