The units were either sold as assembly kits or prebuilt by Heathkit for an additional fee.

HERO 1 is a self-contained mobile robot controlled by an onboard computer with a Motorola 6808 CPU and 4 kB of RAM.

The robot features light, sound, and motion detectors as well as a sonar ranging sensor.

For example, the ANDROTEXT language is a HERO 1 editor and compiler developed in 1982 for the IBM PC.

Heathkit released several add-ons to increase the robot's capabilities, including a transmitter to activate a home security system in the event it senses movement while on "guard duty".

It is capable of remembering and repeating back its master's name, singing songs, reciting poems, acting as an alarm clock, and making its own combinations of phonemes to create a robotic gibberish.