Open-Source Reachy Mini Robot Shows Off its Emotions, and Some Dancing

A small robot sits on a desk with its head tilted, before you hear a speaker emit a faint “Woohoo!”. Meet Reachy Mini, a $299 open-source robot designed to make robotics and artificial intelligence more accessible.

Reachy Mini stands 11 inches tall and weighs 3.3 pounds, making it suitable for use next to your laptop or on a kitchen countertop. Available in two versions—a $299 Lite that connects to a computer and a $449 Wireless with a Raspberry Pi 5, Wi-Fi and battery—it’s a kit you assemble yourself. The hands-on build process demystifies robotics, turning a pile of parts into a functional companion. Cameras, microphones and a 5W speaker let it see, hear and talk, a motorized head with 6 degrees of freedom and animated antennas make it lively.

Pollen Robotics, acquired by Hugging Face in April 2025, has a history of building open-source robots like Reachy 2, a $70,000 humanoid used in research labs at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon. Reachy Mini shrinks that expertise into a consumer product. Programmable in Python, with JavaScript and Scratch support coming, it integrates with Hugging Face’s Hub, a platform hosting AI models and community apps. You can download behaviors like waving or dancing, or code your own and share them globally. A simulator lets you test ideas before your robot arrives.

Recent updates from Pollen Robotics show Reachy Mini’s emotional range. More specifically, over 80 emotions captured through teleoperation with a Vive Tracker, controller and audio recordings. Clips show the robot saying “Woohoo!” with a playful head bob, it seems to be focused on expressive interactions. These emotions are meant to make Reachy Mini feel alive, reacting to sounds, faces or gestures with human-like charm. The community is already experimenting, apps for hand-following games and “Red Light, Green Light” are already shared on Hugging Face’s Spaces.

Shipping for the Lite version starts late summer 2025, the Wireless model will ship in batches from fall 2025 to 2026. The first batch of 100 sold out quickly, it’s clear there’s a lot of demand. Priced like a high-end gadget not an industrial robot, Reachy Mini is for hobbyists, students and researchers. Its open-source nature—hardware and software fully accessible—means you can customize everything from movements to AI models.

Hugging Face’s acquisition of Pollen Robotics means a bigger vision: making robotics as open and collaborative as software. Reachy Mini isn’t just a desk toy, it’s a platform for learning and innovation. Educators can use it to teach coding, developers to prototype conversational AI. Its affordability and community apps make it accessible to anyone curious about robots.