At a pumped storage plant in western Austria, a company called Energy Robotics is testing robot dogs for inspection. All the fancy Boston Dynamics publicity stunts aside: are the robots actually useful? ■ As ever: this is not an advert, Energy Robotics and illwerke vkw had no editorial control. They just asked "do you want to fly your drone inside the Obervermuntwerk II hydroelectric power plant to film a robot dog", and of course I immediately said yes.