robotindex K-Scale Zeroth Bot
A small open-source, 3D-printable humanoid from K-Scale Labs, announced in November 2024 as the Zeroth-01 after a hackathon project and later sold for pre-order as the Z-Bot at $999. It has 18 motorised joints, a 1080p camera, a dual-core RISC-V board, an LED face screen, a microphone and speaker, and a Python SDK with reinforcement-learning walking in simulation. K-Scale Labs shut down in November 2025; the designs and code stay public.
Manufacturer page — github.com/zeroth-robotics →
Image: K-Scale Labs (Zeroth Bot), background removed
Specs
Joints
185 per leg, 4 per arm
Processor
Dual-core RISC-VOn-board
Camera
1080pWide field of view
Other Sensors
IMU + mic6-axis IMU, microphone, speaker
Face
LED screenAnimated eyes
Connectivity
Wi-FiIntegrated
Control
Python / voicePyKOS; voice and gesture teaching
Simulation
K-SimMuJoCo, IsaacSim, Genesis
Build Cost
~$350Bill of materials, project repository
Pre-order Price
$999Z-Bot; orders cancelled
Licence
MIT + CERN-OHLReported; see notes
Status
Company closedK-Scale, November 2025
Reference Price
There is no current price because K-Scale Labs no longer sells the robot. The project repository gives a build cost starting around $350 for the parts, K-Scale took pre-orders for the Z-Bot at $999, and a Kickstarter listing described it as under $1,000. K-Scale cancelled its pre-orders and refunded deposits when it closed. Anyone building one prints the parts and sources the actuators and electronics themselves. robotindex does not sell this product.
Insights
The Zeroth Bot began as a hackathon project at K-Scale Labs in 2024 and was announced on 12 November 2024 as the Zeroth-01, a roughly $350 DIY humanoid with reinforcement-learning walking, vision, audio and torque-controlled joints. K-Scale later offered it as the Z-Bot at $999 alongside its larger K-Bot ($8,999), then shut down in November 2025 after failing to find a lead investor, cancelling pre-orders and refunding deposits. Its founder said the hardware and software for the K-Bot and Zeroth Bot were released publicly, hardware under CERN-OHL-S-2.0 and software under MIT, while the GitHub repository lists an MIT licence and calls the project fully open source; because the sources disagree on whether a non-commercial licence applies, this page carries the Open Source badge on the repository's stated licence and flags the discrepancy. This is a different robot from the Zeroth M1, a closed home companion.
Verified against the zeroth-robotics GitHub repositories (zeroth-bot and the kscalelabs components), K-Scale Labs' launch post on X, Circuit Digest and Robotic Gizmos write-ups, Interesting Engineering's Z-Bot report, and Mike Kalil's articles on K-Scale's shutdown, as of October 2026. Flagged as uncertain: height, weight and battery capacity were not found; the 18-joint count comes from Circuit Digest (5 per leg, 4 per arm); $350 is a bill-of-materials figure and $999 a pre-order price, so no current price exists; the licence is MIT in the repository while one report says hardware CERN-OHL-S-2.0 and software MIT and also calls them non-commercial, which could not be reconciled; the Discontinued status rests on K-Scale's shutdown, not on a product notice; and the photo is a promotional render with its orange studio background removed.