• Honor's innovative Robot Phone now has a release window
• It's set to launch in Q3 (July-September) of this year
• It has also been shown off at Cannes to demonstrate its filmmaking capabilities

Honor’s Robot Phone last made an appearance at MWC 2026, but back then, it was seen as something of a concept device. Now, though, it has an official release window.

Honor has announced that the Robot Phone will launch in Q3 of this year (likely in China first), so sometime between July and September, and alongside this announcement, the company has taken the phone to Cannes China Night, to show off its potential for filmmaking on a phone.

Unlike a normal smartphone, the Honor Robot Phone has an AI-powered camera attached to a gimbal. The camera can stick out the top of the phone and rotate independently of the rest of the handset, so it could be a versatile filmmaking tool.

Advanced tech and an Arri collaboration

Honor is marketing the device as “the next evolution of mobile filmmaking and AI hardware innovation”, with features like its “ultra-compact 4DoF gimbal system delivering robot-grade motion control” being shown off at Cannes, along with AI Object Tracking and AI SpinShot, which allow the camera to follow subjects and carry out fluid rotational movements.

The company also took the opportunity to emphasize that “for the first time ever, core elements of Arri Image Science are being integrated directly into a consumer device”. Arri, if you don’t know, is a designer and manufacturer of professional camera technology that’s been in business since 1917.

So it sounds like the Honor Robot Phone could be a highly capable device when it comes to AI-backed filmmaking, but that also sounds like quite a niche proposition — and given the design of this phone, it was always likely to be somewhat niche regardless.

It will be interesting to see, then, whether it can also attract buyers who aren’t interested in being the next Spielberg. We should find out in just a matter of months.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.