Hugging Face's Open Source ‘Desktop’ Pollen Robot Starts at $299

I caught my first glimpse of Reachy Mini during my interview with Hugging Face principle scientist, Remi Cadene, and Pollen Robotics growth lead, Santiago Pavon, at last month’s Humanoid Summit in London. The open-source robot maintains the familiar visage of the larger Reachy 2, albeit in a snug, desktop form factor.

Even more notable than the size is the system's price point, which is a fraction of a fraction of Reachy 2’s $70,000. The 11-inch tall system is now available for pre-order, starting at $299 for the “lite” version and $449 for the wireless model, which also includes a battery and on-board computer.

Given the sort of openness Hugging Face is promoting with it Le Robot coding repository, it makes sense that the company is embracing a far more accessible price point, courtesy of Pollen Robotics, the fellow French firm it acquired back in April. The system is designed to engage with coding, hacking, education, and the building and deployment of robot applications.

Reachy Mini features a camera, microphones, speakers, and moving antennas. The head rotates with six-degrees of movement, along with a rotating body. “This allows expressive motion and rich multimodal interaction and forms an ideal physical interface for experimenting with the latest speech, vision, and generative AI models,” per a Hugging Face press release.

It can be programmed via Python, with JavaScript, Scratch, and additional languages coming “soon.” The system is set to start shipping in August, with some assembly required. It joins a growing number of open-source robots, including K-Bot, an $8,000 full-size, legged humanoid robot announced last week by Bay Area firm, K-Scale.