Physical AI you build yourself
Reachy Mini is a 28-centimetre desktop robot from Pollen Robotics in Bordeaux, part of Hugging Face since 2025. Unveiled on 9 July 2025, it is open from the ground up: the software is licensed under Apache 2.0 and the design files are freely available. It ships as a kit – two to three hours of assembly, no soldering and no 3D printer required.
Instead of arms, it has expression: the head sits on a platform of six servo motors and moves in six degrees of freedom, the body turns, and two antennas show its mood. A wide-angle camera, four microphones and a 5-watt speaker let it hold a conversation. The Wireless version computes on board with a Raspberry Pi CM4 and runs on battery and Wi-Fi; the Lite version connects to a computer via USB.
Apps decide what it does: an app store on Hugging Face offers more than 60 applications that install with one click – from a conversation partner powered by a language model to hand tracking. Your own apps can be written in Python or as JavaScript web apps; Pollen recommends simply describing the idea to an AI coding agent. If the robot isn't at hand, you can test in simulation.
Use cases
Participants describe in their own words what the robot should do – and see the result on the table minutes later: it nods, looks around, reacts to voices. Makes tangible what AI-assisted programming can do today.
Greets guests, turns its head towards them and comments with its antennas. Small enough for any counter and an eye-catcher that invites conversation. The conversation app uses a cloud language model – clarify beforehand which data goes where.
Shows in workshops and keynotes how language models get a body. Because everything is open, every layer can be shown: from the kit to the motors to the code that drives them.
