robotindex Pollen Robotics Reachy Mini
A stationary desktop AI/robotics development platform from Pollen Robotics (acquired by Hugging Face in April 2025), built around a 6-DOF head with 2 animated antennas and ±160° body rotation. Ships as a self-assembly kit in two variants: a tethered "Lite" (Raspberry Pi CM4 compute lives on your own computer) and a standalone "Wireless" with onboard CM4 compute, Wi-Fi, and battery power. Programmed via an open Python/JavaScript SDK, with a Hugging Face-hosted app store offering 200+ community-built behaviors. Launched July 2025; no legs or wheels, unlike Pollen's newer bipedal Microduck.
pollen-robotics.com/reachy-mini →
Image: user-submitted
Specs
Weight
1.5 kgper Seeed Studio's official Reachy Mini documentation
Dimensions
28 × 16 cm (H × W)~23cm tall in "sleep mode"; no official depth figure published
Sensors
Camera, 4-mic array, speakerPi Camera Module 2 w/ 16mm fisheye lens per an independent teardown; Wireless adds an onboard IMU; mic count on Lite is inconsistently reported across sources (2 vs. 4)
Compute
Raspberry Pi CM4 (Wireless)confirmed via Pollen's own store pages and an independent teardown; some secondary press incorrectly cites Pi 4 or Pi 5
Software
Apache 2.0 SDKPython + JavaScript SDKs, verified genuinely open via the GitHub LICENSE file; LeRobot integration exists only as an unmerged, stale pull request as of this writing, not a shipped feature
Movement
6-DOF head + 2 antennasplus ±160° full-body rotation, 9 servo motors total; stationary desktop unit only, no legs or wheels
Body
~28cm tall, ~1.5kg~23cm in "sleep mode"; ~16cm wide
Variants
Lite vs. WirelessLite is tethered by USB-C to a host Mac/Linux computer for power and all compute; Wireless has its own onboard compute, Wi-Fi, and battery
Assembly
Self-assembly kit, ~2-3hrsno soldering or 3D printing required; a reviewer found setup less "utterly trivial" in practice than launch marketing claimed
Hardware openness
Promised, incompletemarketed as "open source everything" including hardware, but an open, unanswered Nov 2025 GitHub issue states mechanical/CAD files aren't yet fully released
Apps
200+ community appsvia a Hugging Face-hosted app store (May 2026) from 150+ creators, incl. a Conversation app that one reviewer found auto-connects to OpenAI's API without explicit consent, in tension with HF's "no data stored by default" claim
Reference Price
Reachy Mini launched in July 2025 at $299 for the Lite and $449 for the Wireless variant, but current pricing on Hugging Face's and Pollen's own pages has since risen to $399 and $499 respectively (€350/€435 on Pollen's EU store). It's sold directly by Pollen (EU/UK and US/Canada stores) and through Seeed Studio as an alternate distributor.
Insights
Reachy Mini's software is genuinely open source (Apache 2.0), but the "open source everything" hardware claim isn't yet delivered — the launch blog listed hardware release details as "coming soon," and an unanswered November 2025 GitHub issue notes mechanical 3D-print files remain incomplete. A review by hardware reviewer Jeff Geerling also flagged that its built-in Conversation app auto-connects to OpenAI's API by default without explicit user consent — in tension with Hugging Face's claim that the robot doesn't store or transmit personal data by default.
Firmware & Community
pollen-robotics/reachy_mini
Pollen Robotics' official Apache 2.0-licensed SDK (Python and JavaScript) for Reachy Mini, verified against its GitHub LICENSE file.
Specs and history compiled from Hugging Face's own launch blog and app-store announcement, Pollen Robotics' own product and store pages, the
pollen-robotics/reachy_mini GitHub repository (including its LICENSE file and open issue tracker), an independent technical hands-on (Jeff Geerling), and comparison/review coverage (Autonomous.ai, The Bot Scout, VentureBeat, Seeed Studio). Several details are flagged as unconfirmed above: the exact date pricing rose from launch levels, precise current mic count on the Lite variant, the exact license terms on whatever hardware files Pollen has released, and the current merge status of LeRobot integration (an open pull request, not yet shipped, as of this check). This entry hasn't yet been cross-linked into the rest of the Classroom & Coding Kits subcategory; it was already present in the directory listing prior to this pass, so no directory.js/directory edit was needed here.