robotindex Hiwonder MentorPi T1
A Raspberry Pi 5, ROS2 Humble tracked robot with a genuine structured-light depth camera and 2D LiDAR for SLAM — the tank-tread member of Hiwonder's MentorPi family, alongside the Ackermann-steered A1 and Mecanum-wheel M1. A real, budget-tier alternative to TurtleBot4 or Yahboom ROSMASTER for the same use case, at roughly half to a third of TurtleBot4's price.
hiwonder.com/mentorpi-t1 →
github.com/Hiwonder/MentorPi (no license file) →
Image: user-submitted
Specs
Battery
Li-ion, ~7.4Vexact capacity not published for T1; ~1 hr charge time
Weight
Not publishedno official figure found in this research
Dimensions
Not publishedno official figure found in this research
Compute
Raspberry Pi 5sold bare or with 2/4/8/16GB RAM; STM32 sub-controller handles motors
Software
ROS2 Humble, Nav2/SLAM+ YOLOv11 vision and an LLM/voice "embodied AI" layer
Chassis
Aluminum, tank treadrubber tracks; exact dimensions/weight/payload undocumented by Hiwonder
Depth Camera
Hiwonder Aurora930 Progenuine structured-light RGB-D, 640×400 @12fps, 0.3–3m range
LiDAR
Hiwonder "COIN-D6"2D SLAM lidar; no independent datasheet found — specs unverified
2nd Camera
Mono USB, 640×480170° FOV; used for line-following/color-tracking demos
Kit Tiers
Starter / Standard / Advanceddiffer in accessories; price scales with tier and Pi RAM
Reference Price
Hiwonder's own site lists a base configuration from $329.99; RobotShop carries a Starter Kit (Pi 5, 4GB) at $599.99 up to a Standard Kit (Pi 5, 16GB) at $977.99, with an Advanced tier also listed on Amazon. Realistic buy-in for a functional kit runs roughly $600–$1,000 depending on configuration — well under TurtleBot4's current $1,500–$2,000+ price range for a comparable ROS2/SLAM/depth-camera setup, and in the same bracket as Yahboom ROSMASTER.
Insights
Hiwonder's MentorPi GitHub repository contains real, substantial ROS2 packages (SLAM, navigation, YOLO vision), but it has no LICENSE file, so no Open Source badge is applied here — the same situation as this catalog's Yahboom ROSMASTER entry. A published review of the sibling A1 chassis, which shares the same electronics and software stack, found its unit shipped with a default firmware configuration that didn't match the ordered variant and required manual reconfiguration — a risk that applies equally to T1.
Firmware & Community
Hiwonder/MentorPi
Hiwonder's official GitHub repo ships substantial ROS2 packages (SLAM, navigation, YOLO vision) for MentorPi, though it carries no LICENSE file.
Specs compiled from Hiwonder's own product and documentation pages and GitHub repository as of this build. The LiDAR's exact range/accuracy specs and the T1 chassis's dimensions, weight, and payload capacity were not independently verifiable — confirm before purchase.