Hugging Face drops two cheap, open-source humanoids

Hugging Face just open-sourced the blueprints for two radical new humanoid robots, HopeJR and Reachy Mini, aimed at slashing hardware costs from tens of thousands of dollars to something individual developers can actually afford.

Both designs are open under permissive licenses so anyone can inspect, customize, and build them. For builders who don't want to source parts, pre-assembled units are also available through a newly opened waitlist, with early shipments slated to start by late 2025.

What they can do

HopeJR is a full-sized humanoid boasting 66 actuated degrees of freedom, capable of bipedal walking and complex arm maneuvers.

Its control scheme relies on chips built into remote-control gloves. Wearers move their hands, and HopeJR mirrors the exact motions in real time. In launch demos, the robot shook hands with engineers and pointed accurately to specific sentences on a sheet of paper.

Reachy Mini is a turtle-like desktop module packaged inside a compact rectangular case, built using technology acquired from startup Pollen Robotics.

It features an articulating, retractable neck powered by custom Orbita actuators and Maxon motors. The desktop bot can track users, talk, and listen, functioning primarily as a physical sandbox for engineers testing interactive AI agents before deploying them on expensive industrial machinery.

How to get one

Blueprints for both robots are openly available, meaning anyone with access to fabrication tools can print and assemble the parts locally.

If you prefer ready-to-run hardware, Hugging Face plans to sell factory-built units. The full-size HopeJR will run around $3,000, while the desktop Reachy Mini comes in at just $250 to $300, subject to tariffs.

A public waitlist is live right now, and the company expects to begin shipping the first production run before the end of the year.

Why it matters

Robotics research has long been locked behind proprietary black boxes and six-figure price tags from deep-pocketed tech giants.

HopeJR and Reachy Mini are ideal entry points for university labs, indie roboticists, and software devs looking to test embodied AI models on real physical joints. We think trading some industrial-grade durability for a $3,000 full-body rig is a brilliant move that could do for robotics hardware what open weights did for language models.