The embracing face is ready to start tinkering with the developers and start testing the latest robot release.
The AI development platform announced Wednesday that it is accepting orders for mini desktop robots in the range. The company initially unveiled prototypes of these devices in May.
Hugging Face said it plans to release two versions of the Regiony Mini. The first one, called Leedy Mini Wireless, is wireless, for $449 and runs on a Raspberry 5 minicomputer. The second version is Reighy Mini Lite, which requires you to connect to a computing source, but is cheap at $299.
Open source robots have kits for developers to build themselves. The Reach Mini is the size of a standard plush toy and comes with two screens, an eye and two antennas.
Once built, these robots become fully programmable in Python. These devices also come with a set of pre-installed demos, integrated with the company’s open source machine learning platform, Hagging Face Hub. This allows users to access over 1.7 million AI models and over 400,000 datasets.
Clém Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, told TechCrunch that it has decided to release two versions of the Reachy Mini based on initial feedback on the company’s original prototype. Early testers discovered that their 5-year-old daughter wanted to have a desktop robot around the house with her. The company thought she wasn’t the only one.
“The goal for the future is to carefully get lots of such feedback from users, our community. That’s how we’ve always built products that embrace Face as an open source community platform,” says Delangue. “The open source nature means people can expand and modify it and change everything they want.”
The target audience for these devices is AI developers, DeLangue said. Reghiny Mini allows users to code, build and test AI applications on desktop robots.
“Everyone will be able to build their own specific features and apps for Mini that they reach and share them with the community,” Delangue says. “So we hope to actually unleash the creativity of our builders and build millions of different applications, millions of different features that can be shared with our communities.
The Reach Mini Light is supposed to start shipping next month, with the wireless version coming later this year. DeLangue said it is important for the company to start shipping immediately after ordering, rather than running a long pre-order process with an unclear timeline, as they want to put the robot into the hands of the users as quickly as possible.
Delangue added that the release actually matches what Face, who generally embraces robotics programs, is targeting. This is open source hardware that gives users complete control.
“I feel that it’s really important that the future of robotics becomes open source, not a closed source source, rather than a black box. [and] Delang said, “They are concentrated in the hands of a few companies. “I think it’s a very scary world where you have millions of robots in the homes of people whose customers, users, are not actually able to control and are controlled by one company. I’m rather living in a place, a world, or a country where everyone has some control over the robot.”
