Now, UBTech is changing that. The company’s new humanoid, the Walker S2, has a feature that could reshape the future of factory work. It can swap out its own battery, requiring no human intervention.

“The biggest advantage of this friend is that it can work ‘007, 0:00 to 0:00, seven days a week,’” said Lao, a public relations officer at UBTECH Robotics, a humanoid, human-shaped robot company in ...