Robots continue to take new shapes. The latest to garner attention is the Thermonator, a quadruped robot with a flamethrower attached to its back. The flame-throwing robot dog was first teased last summer, but it’s finally on sale for under $10,000.
If you’re curious about exactly what the Thermonator is going for, you can purchase the little robot dog for $9,420. That price tag will get you the robot, as well as the ARC flamethrower attached to its back. The flamethrower can be fueled by both gasoline and napalm, and it features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing you to control it from your smartphone.
You can see the flame-throwing robot dog in action in the very stylized video that I’ve embedded in the article here. On top of all the other features, the Thermonator also comes with a LIDAR sensor, allowing for mapping and obstacle avoidance, as well as a first-person navigational camera.
The company behind the robot, Throwflame, says that it has been designed for functionality such as wildlife control and prevention, agricultural management, ecological conservation, snow and ice removal, as well as entertainment and SFX. I’m not sure I want to see anyone clearing their snowed-in driveway with this thing, but I guess the option is there if you’ve got almost $10,000 to spare.
We’ve steadily been seeing advancements in robotics lately, with one of the top companies, Boston Dynamics, even unveiling a new human-like robot. But this is the first time we’ve seen a commercially available flame-throwing robot dog, and it certainly hits some interesting notes as far as concerns might go.
Not only is it sure to rile up robot doom speak, but it’s also likely to cause some concern about just how many wildfires this robot might cause on its own because people are using it incorrectly. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the future.