Latest news with #ReachyMini
TechCrunch
6 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Hugging Face bets on cute robots to bring open-source AI to life
Just five days after opening up orders on its Reachy Mini robots, AI developer platform Hugging Face says it has logged $1 million worth of sales. That's not a bad start for a company that's just recently expanded into robotics, and is largely known for letting developers download open source AI models off the internet. On this episode of Equity, Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist Thomas Wolf breaks down where he sees the company's robotics going. While other startups tackling robots for the home — such as Figure and 1X — want their robots to offload some of your chores, Hugging Face sees the Reachy Mini as more of a hackable, entertainment device. The device is small enough to fit on your desk, has two misshapen eyes with cameras behind them, as well as microphones, speakers, a head that bobs around, and a pair of antennas for robot ears. It's designed to come with some preset apps, but also lets people build their own apps that can run locally through open source software. Eventually, Hugging Face would like to build out a network of apps for Reachy Mini. Wolf even described the Reachy Mini as 'a bit like an empty iPhone,' hinting at how massive he thinks this market is. The Reachy Mini has gone somewhat viral since launch, largely thanks to its friendly and open design, but also its relatively accessible price point that lets consumers try out an AI-powered robot this year. Wolf says that's a key part to this launch — making something people want to see on their desk everyday, and can actually afford. Wolf describes the Reachy Mini as an entry point for getting consumers to be comfortable with robots in their home, and earning their trust. We got into more of that on the show. I was initially skeptical of the Reachy Mini, but I've started to come around to it. I think Wolf and Hugging Face's vision for the AI device makes seems fun, and seems like a great way for kids or people know to open source software to learn about the space. Wolf also says he's interested to see if people will vibe code apps for their robots, an idea I'm fascinated by and slightly scared of. At other points on the show, Wolf takes listeners inside Hugging Face's acquisition of the french robotics startup, Pollen, and his insistence on developing a robot at a low price point. Wolf also believes that open source AI will play a similar role in robotics as it has in software, and he's trying to position Hugging Face to capture that interest. Later in the episode, we also get into: How Hugging Face plans to leap from software to hardware. Hugging Face's ambitions to one day sell a full-sized humanoid robot. The role of privacy in consumer robotics, and how open-source can address it. Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Digital Trends
15-07-2025
- Digital Trends
The new Reachy Mini robot can let kids turn play into innovation
The Reachy Mini is an exciting new desktop robot aimed primarily at developers, educators, students, and enthusiasts, or basically anyone interested in creative coding. There are actually two of them — Reachy Mini Lite ($299) and Reachy Mini Wireless ($449) — and both were developed by the prominent AI platform Hugging Face following its recent acquisition of Pollen Robotics. The two teams collaborated to make the robot a reality, with Pollen Robotics combining its know-how in open-source robotics with Hugging Face's community-driven approach. Impressively, the robot secured $500,000 worth of sales in only its first 24 hours of going live last week. The cute-looking robot measures about 11 inches (28 cm) tall, 6.3 inches (16 cm) wide, and weighs around 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg), ensuring a decent fit for most desktops or tables. The more affordable of the two versions, Reachy Mini Lite, connects to Mac or Linux computers (Windows support is on the way), and for this version shipping is expected to begin toward the end of this summer. The pricier Reachy Mini Wireless, on the other hand, comes with a Raspberry Pi 5, built-in Wi-Fi, and a battery, and will start shipping in batches from late 2025 through 2026. Once you've assembled it, you can have some instant fun by getting Reachy Mini to show off its 15 pre-installed demonstrations and behaviors, among them facial recognition, hand tracking, antenna movements, voice-activated AI conversations, and object manipulation with its arm and gripper — eliminating the need for you to code from scratch. The fact that it comes with pre-installed demos and a user-friendly setup means that beginners and hobbyists can also use it, especially for educational and exploratory endeavors. But the particularly cool part is that it integrates with the Hugging Face Hub, giving you instant access to numerous AI models and datasets that you can work with to make the robot even more useful and engaging. While so many companion robots — Jibo and Anki's Cozmo and Vector come to mind — have fallen short over the years in terms of capability and affordability, it's the community aspect of the Reachy Mini that makes this particular effort so tantalizing. Indeed, the open-source approach means that it's built for collaboration, and supported by a large and active developer and AI community. It means that there are numerous people out there who can, if they wish, build new features for Reachy Mini, all the time boosting its functionality. And it's this community-driven model that gives it a better chance of succeeding where past robots flopped. Even better, the combination of cuteness and potential could really help to inspire a new generation of kids to get interested in robotics and AI, sparking their imagination and making advanced tech like this feel less intimidating and instead far more approachable. Interested in getting one? The Reachy Mini is available now for preorder.
TechCrunch
11-07-2025
- TechCrunch
Hugging Face's new robot is the Seinfeld of AI devices
Hugging Face's new programmable Reachy Mini bots launched this week. The AI robots are open source, Raspberry Pi-powered, and come with cartoonish antennae and big googly eyes. They don't do much out of the box. And that's kind of the point. Today, on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha dig into the launch of Reachy Mini, which pulled in a surprising $500,000 in sales in its first 24 hours. As open source companies like Hugging Face explore physical products, Kirsten and Max agree that Reachy Mini might be the Seinfeld of AI hardware: the bots might do nothing in particular, but they're still captivating. Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including: Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Engadget
09-07-2025
- Engadget
You can now pre-order Hugging Face's Reachy Mini robots
Hugging Face has launched a new AI-powered robot called the Reachy Mini. Described by its maker in a new blog as an "expressive, open-source robot designed for human-robot interaction, creative coding, and AI experimentation," the Reachy Mini is targeted at anyone with an interest in this growing field of robotics. Its various functions and behaviors can be coded in Python, with support for JavaScript and Scratch due to be added later. As you might have guessed from the name, the Reachy Mini is a compact robot, measuring just 28cm tall and 16cm wide. This means you can easily place it next to your computer on a desk, or the kitchen island while you cook. It comes in variants: the fully autonomous Reachy Mini, which is powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 and can run wirelessly from a built-in battery; and the wired-only Reachy Mini Lite, which currently only works with Mac and Linux. Hugging Face notes the Lite is still in early development. It also lacks the accelerometer that the pricier model has. Otherwise, both robots are broadly similar, with both featuring two animated antennas, full body rotation and six degrees of head movement, as well as a single wide-angle camera and a 5W speaker. They both have microphones, but the Reachy Mini has four, while the Lite has only two. They're sold as buildable kits that you assemble yourself. More than 15 demos can be accessed on the Hugging Face hub at launch, so you can start messing around straight away, and anything you program yourself can be shared with the Hugging Face community (and vice versa), which the company says has more than 10 million members. Hugging Face is taking orders for the $299 Reachy Mini Lite and $449 wireless Reachy Mini now, with the former expected to ship late summer 2025, and the more fully-featured model rolling out in batches from fall through 2026.
The Verge
09-07-2025
- The Verge
Hugging Face's adorable Reachy Mini robot is now available for preorder.
Posted Jul 9, 2025 at 12:55 PM UTC Hugging Face's adorable Reachy Mini robot is now available for preorder. The open-source robot is fully programmable in Python, allowing tinkerers to create and test AI applications for the desktop-sized device, which features 'expressive movement' with a motorized head and body, as well as multimodal sensing. The $449 Reach Mini is wireless and powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 minicomputer. There's also a cheaper, $299 Reachy Mini Lite model that requires a wired connection to a computer.
