Reachy Mini is an open-source desktop robot from Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face. It is a kit you build and program, and it is not sold as a kids' toy. This page covers what a parent should know before buying one for a family project, from the maker's own page in October 2026.
What it is
Pollen Robotics describes it as "an expressive companion robot designed for human interaction, creative coding, and AI experimentation." It has a camera, four microphones and a speaker, and it moves its head to look at you.
Two versions
- Reachy Mini (Wireless): $499. It has a Raspberry Pi computer on board and connects over Wi-Fi.
- Reachy Mini Lite: $399. It plugs into your Mac, PC or Linux machine by USB and uses that computer as its brain. The motion is the same.
Both arrive as kits. Assembly takes about two hours.
What you can do with it
More than 60 apps install with one click from Hugging Face. A voice conversation is built in. You can also write your own programs: the hardware and software are open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
What to know before you order
- Delivery. The maker quotes a lead time of up to 90 days.
- Extra cost. The buyer pays shipping and import duties.
- Where it ships. Direct sales cover the U.S., Canada, the EU and the UK. Other countries order through a reseller.
Is Reachy Mini for kids?
The maker's page gives no age range, no parental controls and no kids' content filter. The built-in conversation is a general voice model. Treat it the way you would treat any open chatbot and stay in the room.
Miko is the opposite kind of product: a finished toy with kids' content and a parent app, and a subscription to match.
Reachy Mini suits a family where a parent or a teenager writes code and wants to build something together with a younger kid. Assembling it is a two-hour project for an adult and a kid. After that, the robot does what you program it to do.
Source: pollen-robotics.com/reachy-mini, checked in October 2026.