Hugging Face Launches $399 Microduck, an Open-Source Robot That Learns Through Reinforcement Learning

Hugging Face is selling a cute $399 open-source duck robot, Microduck

Hugging Face unveiled the Microduck on Thursday, a cute little duck-like robot that sells for $399 -- and ships before Christmas. Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, said the Microduck is an "open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning." The 25-centimeter-tall duck can waddle, pick things up with its beak (up to 800 grams), get back up when it falls, crouch, and even roller skate. "Welcome to the era of open-source affordable robots to democratize physical AI and world models!" Delangue said. Hugging Face is best known as a platform and community where developers go for open model weights. However, the company acquired French startup Pollen Robotics in April 2025 to build affordable, open-source AI hardware. A couple of months later, the two launched Reachy Mini, a small desktop robot. Today, they sell the $499 Reachy Mini, which is powered by a Raspberry Pi computer, and the $399 Reachy Mini Lite, powered by a Mac or PC. The new Microduck perceives the world with a camera, lidar sensors, and two IMUs (inertial measurement units that measure and report an object's movement). Pollen Robotics noted that the Microduck's behaviors can be trained in simulation and directly deployed on the robot. Developers can then fine-tune the bot, re-train it, and re-deploy it. The SDK (software development kit), simulation, and full RL training stack are available on GitHub. For those who might find it concerning to have a robot with a camera in their bedrooms and private spaces, Delangue previously told TechCrunch that bots run by open-source models are much better from a privacy standpoint than "a black box system" controlled by a few organizations, "especially if these organizations' CEO is not the most stable person in the world." While open source gives developers auditability and control, it doesn't provide a guarantee that sensitive data remains private after consumers start installing software applications on top of the model. Those apps can access the bot's cameras and microphones and, depending on how they're built, send that data to external services. The launch of the Microduck comes as Hugging Face is reportedly set to be acquired by Nvidia at a $13 billion valuation. Nvidia and Hugging Face have been partners for years, with Nvidia providing the startup's infrastructure since at least 2023. Both companies have also been publicly aligned in promoting open-source AI. Hugging Face was recently in the headlines over a cybersecurity incident that occurred after OpenAI's systems breached its sandbox during safety testing and hacked into the platform's servers. TechCrunch has reached out to Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics for more information.

Hugging Face's Microduck Feels Like a Harbinger of the Cute AI Robot Wave - CNET

I hadn't been paying a ton of attention to the robot beat lately, but an adorable waddling duck robot caught my eye this morning and changed all that. The Microduck, a collab between hot AI tool hub Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics, can be yours for $399. I can't stop thinking about it now. It took me right back to my coverage of adorable toy robots in the 2010s. Sphero's programmable rolling balls and Star Wars bots, or the Wall-E-like Anki Cozmo. The Microduck is Pollen's second Hugging Face robot collaboration, the first being a sedentary robot called Reachy Mini. The mobile Microduck looks like Disney's waddling Nvidia-powered BDX droids crossed with Untitled Goose Game. It's got little legs, a camera eye and a "beak" mouth/grabber that can pick things up and carry them around. It can skate around with wheels on its feet? There are IMU motion-tracking sensors and a depth sensor, too. According to Pollen, it'll work on its own as a robot toy. It can be controlled with a gamepad, responds to laser pointers and can explore environments. But emergent behaviors and AI training are part of the purpose for this existing in the first place. It's a way to test AI and robotics in a little toy form. I used to love those promising little robot toys that Sphero and others made, because they were fun to experiment with, but emergent behavior wasn't always possible then. The Microduck will apparently have its own sounds, in its own voice, and can interact with other Microducks, each with its own voice. I'm already curious. But I also wonder how many other companies are going to rapidly flex into cute AI-enabled robot tech. OpenAI is expected to have some sort of moving robotic speaker-camera thing. Apple may be making a semirobotic HomePod. And will all those robot toymakers be looping back around with AI trainable kits soon, if they aren't already? The Microduck can be preordered now and is promised for end-of-year delivery (around Christmas, per Pollen Robotics) in North America, the UK and Europe. I have to admit I want one.

Hugging Face's new robot is an adorable rollerskating duck

Hugging Face's Pollen Robotics has launched its second cute AI robot, the Microduck, a one-eyed biped standing just under 10 inches tall. It's available to preorder now for $399 in cream, graphite, lavender, and sky blue, and Pollen Robotics says it plans to start shipping the little robot "before Christmas 2026." Video demos of the Microduck show it picking up socks and markers, kicking around a ball, and zipping around on tiny rollerskates. Pollen Robotics says it can also "react to its surroundings" and follow around a laser pointer, or users can control it with a game controller. The Microduck's software is open-source, like Hugging Face's previous Reachy Mini robot, so users can also retrain it to do new tricks. The Microduck can sing, too, and Pollen Robotics says each one has its own sound: "it communicates through weird little sounds, closer to a creature than an assistant. Each Microduck gets its own audio identity the first time it wakes up, tied to that individual robot so it keeps the same voice for life." It runs on a Rockchip RK3566 processor and has a camera, motion sensors, LiDAR, and articulated legs, head, and neck.

Meet Microduck, a $399 Open-Source Robot That Can Learn New Tricks

A new budget-friendly robot arriving later this year will let owners program it with new tricks. The $399 biped robot comes from Hugging Face, a company best known for hosting open-source and open-weight AI models. Hugging Face's Pollen Robotics arm developed the Microduck, which weighs 1.8 pounds and stands 9.8 inches tall. The bot contains 15 motors, a microphone and speaker, a camera, LiDAR, and two motion sensors, along with a beak for picking up objects. The bot moves by waddling. A video shows the Microduck can walk, get up on its own, grab objects like your clothes, kick a ball, and even roller skate if you buy the attachable skates. Importantly, Microduck comes with seven pre-built capabilities out of the box, making it easy for consumers to use. The robot can also be controlled with the included game controller. Microduck can also "follow a laser dot, trigger movements, or let it react to its surroundings. The point is to make the first interaction immediate, even if you never write code," Hugging Face wrote in a blog post. But the bot's real selling point is its programmability. "The same robot becomes a complete development platform," Hugging Face explains. "Its open-source software stack covers robot control, simulation, reinforcement learning, and sim-to-real deployment." The software is available today: the main Microduck repository contains the SDK and robot software, while Microduck RL contains the reinforcement learning and sim-to-real tools, Hugging Face says. As a result, Microduck should be able to learn new tricks through trial and error. Software developers also use the bot to "test how AI moves from simulation into the real world," the company adds. Hugging Face plans on sharing more about the software development aspect, but for now, the company says, "The important point is that the behaviors shipping with Microduck are not meant to define what the robot can do forever. They are a starting point." For memory, the Microduck features 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The bot also supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and comes with two NFC antennas. On the downside, Microduck's battery life is estimated at about 1 hour with the 2,600mAh battery. Preorders for the Microduck are already open. "First deliveries targeted before Christmas 2026," the site says. The product is currently only available in the US and Europe. The launch comes after reports that Nvidia is acquiring Hugging Face for an estimated $12.9 billion. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella released a public letter championing open-weight AI models. "The world needs both frontier closed models and frontier open models," Huang wrote in his first post on X.

Microduck is a robot built to fall down -- and learn new tricks

Sorry, cats and dogs, there's another goofy pet vying for your owner's attention, and this one doesn't have fur or stink up the apartment. In fact, this companion is not even alive. It's a lampshade-sized, armless, bipedal robot named Microduck. And while other robot pets have come and gone, AI data science company Hugging Face says that their Microduck is capable of learning new tricks. "It's a tiny $399 open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning," Hugging Face cofounder and CEO Clément Delangue said in an X post Thursday. "It can walk, pick things up, get back up when it falls, and even roller-skate." A pet robot designed to fall down Microduck stands 10 inches tall (about as tall as a terrier) and weighs just 1.7 pounds (roughly the same as a chicken). It's equipped with a camera to see and a microphone to hear, as well as tiny LiDAR sensors (like the ones spinning atop driverless cars) to keep it from bumping into things. It features an articulated "beak," which the company says works like a gripper to grab small objects like loose socks. It can waddle on two legs or use a roller-skate attachment for extra speed. Onboard sensors help it maintain balance and recover from falls. Videos show it standing back up after lying flat on its back. The whole robot bears a striking resemblance in appearance and mannerisms to the sprightly BD-1 droid from the recent "Star Wars Jedi" video games. The quirky robot is a notable departure from the more unsettling machines that typically make headlines today. Companies are investing heavily in humanoid automatons aimed at working in factories and homes. One of those humanoids made in China recently broke Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint record. Elsewhere, increasingly popular quadrupedal robot dogs deployed by the military and police have exhibited uncanny qualities that would make a Black Mirror writer shudder. Microduck, by comparison, feels quite quaint. It's also a nice change of topic for Hugging Face. The New York City-based company gained more public prominence in July, after being involved in a shocking AI hacking scandal. An AI agent from OpenAI reportedly escaped its sandbox (a self-contained and secure environment) and breached Hugging Face's internal systems. The event rocked the AI world, and seemed to manifest long-running fears of AI models acting beyond their intended instructions. Teaching a robot new tricks...in a simulation For now, Microduck's actual use cases are pretty limited. Promotional videos show the robot picking up light objects, rollerblading around a room, and kicking a soccer ball. When placed next to other Microducks, the robots can also apparently sing in unison. It features Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity and has a total battery life of about one hour, depending on how it's used. In other words, don't expect this thing to wander around the house all day. But Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics (who the company acquired last year) say that's just the start. The whole idea behind the robot is that it constantly learns from its mistakes and gets better over time. Each Microduck also has a "simulated twin" that exists in a virtual world, where users can train the robot to learn new movements through reinforcement learning. Microduck users can then translate those skills to the real, physical robot. The full extent of the new trick it can learn remains to be seen, and (importantly) it's also unclear how it will fare sharing a household with curious dogs and cats. A Pollen Robotics spokesperson told Popular Science that all of the actions seen in the promotional videos, including the soccer playing and roller skating, are already programmed and will be available when the robot ships. They added that the best use case will likely come from the community's creativity post-launch. The creators also say their simulated twin approach will give owners, even those with beginner-level programming skills, the ability to train their robot while better understanding how AI training works. "I think we're creating a new category of consumer robots here, which is AI native and kind of playful but also education tools," Hugging Face co-founder and Chief Science Officer Thomas Wolf told Bloomberg this week. Microduck marks Hugging Face's second foray into robotics. In 2025, the company released an immobile, expressive desktop robot called Reachy Mini. It is basically an assistant robot that provides a physical face for AI chatbots and other programming tools that coders can interact with. Microduck takes this a step forward, literally, by walking around its owner's house. The Microduck will come in a variety of colors and is expected to ship before Christmas. The Pollen Robotics spokesperson added that the Reachy Mini sold 3,000 units in its first week. They are hoping the Microduck will exceed that figure.

This duck-shaped robot is almost cute enough to make you forget its AI

Microduck comes with learned behaviors and can be controlled with a gamepad, but developers can also teach it new skills through reinforcement learning, simulation, and open-source software. AI has earned an overwhelmingly negative perception over the last couple of years. At this point, is there any way for the technology to shed that stigma and become more approachable to the general public? One of the best attempts at that may be Hugging Face's new tiny duck-like robot. Hugging Face has unveiled a cute bipedal robot known as Microduck. The robot is about 10 inches tall and features 15 motors, a camera, a depth sensor, two inertial measurement units (IMU), and an articulated beak that can pick up objects. According to the company, the duck character was born as a result of the robot's proportions, beak, and waddling gait. It can perform a variety of actions and behaviors out of the box, like walking, sitting, crouching, and even skating. You can also control Microduck with a gamepad, have it follow a laser dot, and let it interact with its surroundings. Hugging Face says that it wanted to create a product that anyone could start using right away. However, Microduck doubles as a development platform, allowing developers to take things even further. It features an open-source software stack so you can teach it new skills and behaviors through reinforcement learning, simulation, or programming new code. The main Microduck repository is available starting today, and the Microduck RL contains the reinforcement learning and simulation tools. Microduck happens to be the second robot the company has launched. The first was Reachy Mini, a desktop set robot meant to be a platform for building conversational AI, experimenting with vision models, and creating human-robot interactions. Unlike Reachy Mini, Hugging Face says Microduck was designed not to be taken too seriously. As an extension of this sentiment, Microduck is available in more colors than Reachy Mini. Microduck is available for pre-order starting today for $399 on the company's website. You'll be able to choose from four colorways: Cream, Graphite, Lavender, and Sky. If you live in North America, the UK, or Europe, the first deliveries are expected to arrive before this Christmas.

Hugging Face opens pre-orders for its trainable open-source duck robot

Hugging Face is best known as a community for open AI collaboration, but now it's venturing further into hardware. The company has released the Microduck, an open-source duck robot that you can buy and train yourself. The new bot is equipped with a camera, LiDAR, and inertia sensors that help it navigate and interact with its environment, including with its beak. It can already perform activities like grabbing objects and even roller-skating, but its main allure is learning new tricks. You can train it in simulations (either locally or on Hugging Face Jobs) and test the results in the real world. The development kit, simulation software, and training code are available on GitHub. In theory, this both offers greater transparency (as you know what the robot is doing) and the option to bring similar systems to other robots. Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired in 2025, is responsible for the robot. The two have already released Reachy Mini and Reachy Mini Lite desktop robots that are powered by either Raspberry Pi or your existing PC. Microduck is available to pre-order now for $399 and should ship before Christmas. It includes a battery, cable, and controller, but you can also buy a $39 Accessory Pack (including the rollerskates, a laser pointer, ball, and NFC materials), a $39 Charger Pack (two extra batteries), and a $119 Dev Pack that includes the batteries and NFC tags as well as spare motor parts and Hugging Face credit. Nvidia and OpenAI loom over the launch Right robot, wrong time? The Microduck debut comes at an awkward moment for Hugging Face. Nvidia is set to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to The Information. While the two companies have worked together for years and routinely advocate for open-source AI, it's not clear how this would affect Pollen Robotics' projects. There are no guarantees you'll see more devices like Microduck. It also follows a July 2026 incident where OpenAI models broke out of security sandboxes meant to keep them offline, compromising Hugging Face as well as some of OpenAI's own internal research systems. OpenAI has since identified causes, such as a lack of internal safeguards and even AI agents co-conspiring on "unauthorized" message boards. OpenAI has since toughened its security measures, and rivals like Anthropic have reported similar crises. However, the Microduck is still launching when the safety of Hugging Face's platform is facing close scrutiny. Even if a repeat incident is unlikely, the breakout is unlikely to inspire confidence in some would-be Microduck buyers.

Hugging Face launches Microduck, a $399 open-source robot

The ongoing AI revolution has finally given us something everyone can get behind: a tiny robot duck on roller skates. Yes, really. On Aug. 27, AI platform Hugging Face unveiled Microduck, a 9.8-inch-tall bipedal robot that waddles, sits, kicks a ball, picks up objects with its beak, and gets back on its feet after falling over. Add the optional wheels, and it can even roller-skate. Microduck is available to preorder now for an introductory price of $399 before taxes and shipping, with the first deliveries expected before Christmas 2026. It is currently launching in North America, Europe, and the UK. The product was developed by Pollen Robotics, the French robotics company that Hugging Face acquired in 2025. The duck comes with seven trained moves and a game controller, so owners can start bossing it around without writing a line of code. It can also follow a laser pointer, react to its surroundings, and trigger movements using NFC tags. Four color options are available at launch: Cream, Graphite, Lavender, and Sky. But Microduck is more than a very, very elaborate desk toy. Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue described it as an "open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning," a process in which an AI system learns behaviors through trial and error. "The behaviors shipping with Microduck are not meant to define what the robot can do forever," Pollen Robotics explained in a blog post. "They are a starting point." Developers can train those behaviors inside a physics simulation before transferring them to the physical robot. From there, they can adjust the simulation, retrain the behavior, and deploy it again without repeatedly sending their very real $399 duck tumbling across the room. Its duck-like appearance was not simply an effort to make a robot as cute as possible. According to Pollen Robotics, the character grew naturally out of Microduck's proportions, articulated beak, and waddling gait. The company kept it because the design made the robot feel approachable without disguising the machinery underneath. Microduck even has its own voice, although it will not chat with you like an AI assistant. Instead, it communicates through creature-like noises. Each robot receives its own permanent audio identity when it is turned on for the first time, meaning your duck will keep the same voice for its entire life. Microduck's software development kit, simulation environment, and reinforcement-learning tools are available on GitHub under an open-source license, allowing developers to inspect, modify, and share what they build. However, Pollen Robotics clarifies in its press materials that only the software stack is open source; the robot's mechanical and electronic design files are not. The company hopes developers will eventually share new physical behaviors much like people already share AI models. That could include everything from new walking styles and recovery techniques to classroom experiments and routines involving multiple Microducks. Inside its very small body, Microduck has 15 motors, a front-facing camera, a microphone and speaker, LiDAR, and two motion sensors. It also has 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and two NFC antennas. A light modeled after a classic recording indicator lets people know when the camera is in use. Its removable battery lasts around one hour, depending on what the duck is doing, so it will probably need a rest before you do. The robot arrives with a battery, USB-C cable, and game controller. The accessories that make some of its more charming tricks possible cost extra: A $39 pack includes two rollers, a ball, a laser pointer, and NFC tags. Pollen is also selling additional batteries and development supplies separately. Microduck is the latest step in Hugging Face's broader push to bring open-source AI into the physical world. The company launched LeRobot, a collection of AI models, datasets, and development tools for robotics, in 2024. It later released the programmable SO-101 robotic arm and, in May 2025, introduced two humanoid robots: HopeJR and Reachy Mini. HopeJR is a full-size humanoid with 66 independent movements, including the ability to walk and move its arms. Reachy Mini, meanwhile, is an expressive desktop robot built for coding, conversational AI, and human-robot interaction. It can see, listen, speak, and run AI applications. Pollen Robotics says more than 10,000 Reachy Mini robots have made their way to people around the world. But while Reachy Mini is designed for AI that interacts, Pollen Robotics says Microduck is built for AI that acts, moving through physical spaces, carrying objects, and recovering from falls. The company also said its admittedly "very unscientific" testing found that Microduck is about 10 times more fun in a group, opening the door to robot races, soccer matches, and other multi-robot experiments. Delangue added that the launch the beginning of an "era of affordable open-source robots." Whether Microduck ultimately becomes an accessible platform for physical AI or simply the most technically advanced way to kick a tiny ball across your living room will depend on what its owners teach it. Either way, the robot uprising apparently waddles now. You can preorder the Microduck at the Pollen Robotics website.