Hugging Face Introduces Pre-Orders for Reachy Mini Desktop Robots

Hugging Face is gearing up for developers to start exploring its latest robotics innovation.

On Wednesday, the AI development platform announced that it is now accepting orders for its Reachy Mini desktop robots. These robots were first unveiled as prototypes in May, along with a larger humanoid robot called HopeJR.

Hugging Face will offer two models of the Reachy Mini. The first, the Reachy Mini Wireless, operates wirelessly, priced at $449, and runs on a Raspberry Pi 5 mini computer. The second option, Reachy Mini Lite, requires a wired connection and is more budget-friendly at $299.

These open-source robots are sold as kits for developers to assemble. The Reachy Minis are about the size of a standard stuffed animal and come with two screens for eyes and antennas.

After assembly, these robots are fully programmable using Python. They come with various pre-installed demos and connect with the Hugging Face Hub, the company’s open-source machine learning platform, allowing access to over 1.7 million AI models and more than 400,000 datasets.

Clém Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, shared with TechCrunch that the decision to launch two variants of the Reachy Mini was influenced by initial feedback on the company’s original prototype. An early tester noted that her five-year-old daughter wanted to take the desktop robot around the house, indicating a broader interest.

“Our future aim is to continually gather valuable feedback from users and the community; this has always been the cornerstone of product development at Hugging Face as an open-source community platform,” Delangue explained. “Being open source allows people to extend, modify, and customize it as they wish.”

According to Delangue, the primary target audience for these devices is AI developers. The Reachy Minis empower users to code, build, and test AI applications on these desktop robots.

“Anyone can develop their own unique features and applications for the Reachy Mini, which they can then share with the community,” Delangue mentioned. “We expect this will unleash builders’ creativity, enabling them to create millions of applications and features for plug-and-play use.”

The Reachy Mini Lite is anticipated to ship next month, while the wireless version will follow later this year. Delangue stressed the importance of fulfilling orders promptly rather than engaging in a prolonged pre-order process with an uncertain timeline, aiming to deliver the robots to users quickly.

Delangue also highlighted that this release is part of Hugging Face’s broader vision for its robotics program—creating open-source hardware that provides users full control.

“I believe it’s vital for the future of robotics to remain open source, rather than being monopolized by a few companies,” Delangue stated. “It’s concerning to think of millions of robots in homes being controlled by a single entity, leaving users without adequate control or understanding. I would prefer to live in a world where everyone has some level of control over their robots.”