Pollen Robotics, the outfit behind Hugging Face’s Reachy Mini, is back with a second robot that’s harder to ignore: the Microduck, a one-eyed biped standing just under 10 inches tall. Preorders are live now at $399, with shipping promised before Christmas 2026. Color options include cream, graphite, lavender, and sky blue — a palette that suggests this thing is aimed at desks and living rooms, not factory floors.
The demos make the pitch clear. The Microduck picks up socks and markers, kicks a ball around, and zips across surfaces on tiny rollerskates. It can react to its surroundings, chase a laser pointer, or take direct input from a game controller. The software is open-source, same as the Reachy Mini, so anyone inclined can retrain it for new behaviors. Under the hood sits a Rockchip RK3566 processor, paired with a camera, motion sensors, LiDAR, and articulated legs, head, and neck.
Then there’s the voice. Pollen Robotics says each Microduck generates its own audio identity the first time it wakes up — and keeps that same voice for life. “It communicates through weird little sounds, closer to a creature than an assistant,” the company explains. That’s a deliberate design choice: personality over utility. It’s also a bet that people bond with machines that feel idiosyncratic, not polished. The singing feature is just the most obvious expression of that.
The $399 price point puts the Microduck in an interesting spot. It’s dramatically cheaper than the Reachy Mini, which targets researchers and educators, but more expensive than impulse-buy toy robots. Whether open-source software and a lifetime voice are enough to justify that middle ground remains an open question. What’s clearer is that Pollen Robotics is trying to build a consumer robotics brand around character first — and the rollerskating duck is a memorable opening argument.
