Track
What real users say about humanoids, AMRs, cobots, vision systems and open-source VLA models, on Reddit, X, Hacker News and in trade press.
Public feedback collected on July 10, 2026. Short excerpts are quoted for informational purposes, with a link to the original source. The sentiment score is an editorial assessment by the Atlas, not an official rating from the quoted author.
22 reviews
24 reviews
17 reviews
9 reviews
24 reviews
formed strain wave gearbox
““Schaeffler will take a leading role in the market for humanoid robots,””
David Kehr states Schaeffler aims to take a leading role in the humanoid robot market. The company plans to mass-produce its formed strain wave gearboxes in 2027 using a forming technology that lowers cost and material use.
Unitree humanoids
““Unitree has proven it can sell robots. It hasn’t proven their operational durability, repeat business, or a use case that warrants deployment at scale,””
Nicolaus Radford points out that Unitree has proven it can sell robots, but has not yet shown operational durability, repeat customers, or a use case that justifies large-scale deployment.
Kollmorgen
““A Joint-by-Joint Guide to Humanoid Motion,””
Yoshi Umeno will present the session "A Joint-by-Joint Guide to Humanoid Motion" at RoboBusiness, advocating a zone-by-zone architecture to design humanoid motion and ease the move from prototype to production.
LEL
“We believe this collaboration creates a strong foundation for developing and scaling next-generation tactile sensing and electronic skin solutions for humanoid robotics,”
Harris Wang says the collaboration lays a strong foundation to develop and scale tactile sensing and electronic skin solutions for humanoid robots.
humanoid
“We’re building astonishing machines that can move like us and, in many cases, see better than us.”
The author highlights the impressive progress of humanoid robots in locomotion and vision, while implying important missing capabilities. He contrasts their motor/visual performance with shortcomings in audio communication.
BioflexBot
““By harnessing structural and physical intelligence, we pursued a simple design capable of both cross-scale grasping and complex human-like manipulation,””
Yingtian Li emphasizes an approach that leverages structural and physical intelligence to achieve a simple robotic hand capable of cross-scale grasping and complex manipulation.
Siemens Xcelerator
““The future of robotics: Intelligent, adaptable, and on your team,””
McKinsey frames general-purpose robotics as a high-potential market that could reach $370 billion by 2040. The article advocates using Siemens Xcelerator to integrate design and simulation and speed humanoid development.
Robo Inc.
“With U.S.-based assembly, localized data infrastructure, and domestic integration, Robo Inc. will create a robotics platform built for American compliance,”
Teddy Haggerty introduces Robo Inc., a new U.S.-based robotics manufacturer and systems integrator aiming to deliver a robotics platform compliant with U.S. requirements by combining local assembly and data infrastructure.
Avatar
““Colin’s vision for Avatar instantly captivated me,””
Amy Yin of defy.vc praises Colin Webb's vision and Avatar's approach, highlighting the use of remote operators to collect real-world data and advance toward robot autonomy.
Gemini Robotics 2
“robots need finesse.”
DeepMind states that robots "need finesse" and introduces Gemini Robotics 2, a VLA model enabling full-body control and advanced dexterity on humanoids such as the Apollo 2.
humanoid robots
““pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States.””
The FCC reported that a White House-convened interagency body determined certain imported robots pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States. That finding led to limits on importing new humanoid and mobile robots.
Apollo 2
“interesting time to try the different physical ai stuff! the apollo 2 [1] featured in the videos is quite cute and seeing it for the first time. the benchmarks right below the list of models is weirdly set. very unlike the standards of the usual alphabet websites. [1]”
The author saw the Apptronik Apollo 2 in videos for the first time and finds it "cute"; they note that the benchmarks are oddly positioned right below the list of models, unlike Alphabet's usual standards.
humanoid robots
“This is one of the strongest technology-security actions in modern U.S. history,”
Evan Beard, CEO of Standard Bots, praises the U.S. move as a strong technology-security action aimed at protecting the national robotics industry.
Figure 02/03 @ BMW Spartanburg
“manufacturers have yet to publish detailed evidence of productivity improvements or return on investment.”
Trade press notes that no manufacturer, including BMW, has yet published detailed evidence of productivity gains or ROI.
Agility Digit @ GXO
paraphrase“Digit a déplacé plus de 100 000 bacs chez GXO, preuve d'un débit industriel réel.”
Agility Robotics reports Digit has surpassed 100,000 totes moved at GXO, evidence of real industrial throughput rather than a lab demo.
Digit, Apollo, Reflex Robot @ GXO
“We are going really broad and aggressive on the category.”
GXO is testing several humanoid vendors at once while admitting each robot is still confined to a single defined task.
Unitree G1
“I've had a lot of AI nightmares... If I could, I would certainly slow down AI and robotics.”
A technician who helped assemble G1 units admits unease and says he would slow down AI and robotics development if he could.
Unitree G1
“bought and paid for basic G1 almost a month ago... constant delays for various reasons. Is that normal?”
A retail G1 buyer complains of repeated, unexplained shipping delays a month after paying in full.
Unitree G1
“I am dubious the Unitree G1 even exists/functions in the way all the hype is promoting.”
A commenter doubts the Unitree G1 even works the way the surrounding hype suggests.
Figure 01 @ BMW Spartanburg
“not even BMW appears to know what these waddling robots will be doing.”
Futurism quips that even BMW itself does not seem to know what tasks its humanoid robots will actually perform.
Unitree G1
“the warranty has terms that are likely against FTC guidelines, like voiding the warranty if you disassemble the robot.”
A commenter flags G1 warranty terms as likely violating US consumer-protection (FTC) guidelines, including voiding cover on disassembly.
Agility Digit @ GXO (SPANX)
“We're excited to take this pioneering step with Agility in the evolution of technology in warehouse operations.”
GXO's automation chief calls the Digit pilot launch a pioneering step for warehouse robotics.
robotic lawn mower
““iPhone moment””
Terry Ma calls the current industry phase an “iPhone moment,” arguing that AI and satellite navigation are making robot mowers ready for mainstream adoption. He highlights a shift toward widespread use.
Robin
““A day in the life of a roboticist””
This is the title of an IEEE Spectrum series that featured Bhavana Chandrashekhar. It highlights media visibility for roboticists.
Agtonomy platform
““Growers don’t have time to wait for innovation to show up in the field; they need autonomous fleets that work today and get better tomorrow,””
Agtonomy added fully autonomous multi-point turning to its agricultural vehicles and enhanced passive data collection, enabling precise maneuvers in tight spaces and continuous system improvement.
autonomous wheelchair
““I’ve been a power wheelchair user for over 30 years, my whole life really,””
Owen Kent, a long-time power wheelchair user and ATDev leader, says he has used a power chair for over 30 years. His personal experience drives the company's work on autonomous wheelchairs.
Serve sidewalk robot
““Every new partner puts more robots to work, and every delivery makes the whole fleet smarter.””
Ali Kashani emphasizes that each new partner adds more robots to service and makes the fleet smarter, reflecting Serve's expansion with partners such as Grubhub.
Moxi 2.0
““Today, we’re deploying our most sophisticated physical AI platform yet,””
Diligent Robotics has begun rolling out Moxi 2.0, a next-generation physical AI platform shaped by five years of hospital operation. The robot brings faster perception, improved autonomy and longer runtime, feeding a learning flywheel for continuous improvement.
Gravis Rack
““To build the future, we need to change the world, literally,””
Ryan Luke Johns states Gravis's ambition to transform construction by automating earthmoving. The company offers the Gravis Rack kit to make excavators and other equipment autonomous.
Project Call 27-01
“Technologies with strong potential for successful commercialization are highly desired, as this reduces DoW cost and acquisition barriers,”
The ARM Institute emphasizes prioritizing technologies with strong commercialization potential to lower DoW costs and acquisition barriers. The recommendation aims to promote dual-use solutions applicable to defense and broader manufacturing.
TALUS
“TALUS brings together the right combination of mobility, autonomy, and systems integration to address a critical Army logistics need,”
Timothy George states that TALUS combines mobility, autonomy, and systems integration to meet a critical Army logistics need, emphasizing the program's fit to operational requirements.
Obsidian
““HYPR is a powerful validation of our vision – that physical AI can scale shipbuilding capacity in one of the world’s most demanding production environments.””
Andy Lonsberry calls HYPR a powerful validation that physical AI can scale shipbuilding capacity in some of the most demanding production environments.
Robin
““Robin came from the universe to Earth, and it always wants to go back to the universe, see what it can see there, but it’s impossible for him,” Martirosyan told The Robot Report .”
Robin is a mobile socially assistive robot deployed in hospitals and clinics to soothe and distract patients, especially children. Expper emphasizes its friendly, narrative-driven interactions to improve emotional well‑being.
AMR
“Due to the emergence of embodied intelligence, the AMR market is no longer as hot as before.”
A commenter argues that the emergence of embodied intelligence has cooled interest in the AMR market, which is "no longer as hot as before."
quadruped
““Physical AI represents the next evolution of artificial intelligence—one where intelligent systems can perceive, reason and act autonomously in the real world,””
Arthur Chung of Avnet describes "Physical AI" as the next stage of AI applied to the real world. The piece outlines an edge-AI inspection platform on a quadruped that enables on-device inference to boost safety and operational continuity.
Mobius
“The era of simple automation is over.”
Mel Torrie states that the era of simple automation is over and that advanced perception is now central to making industrial autonomy reliable and scalable, using solutions like the Mobius platform.
KUKA AMP
“With the launch of AMP, manufacturing is entering a new era,”
Marc Fleischmann presents KUKA AMP as the foundation for a new era in manufacturing, combining proven industrial automation with AI capabilities to enhance operations.
TimescaleDB
“No pipelines, no migration, no second system. Just Postgres, built for the workload you actually have.”
Promotional slogan from Tiger Data for TimescaleDB, emphasizing no pipelines or migrations and using Postgres for real-time workloads.
Unitree G1
“I could not disagree more with the claim about no improvement in robotic actuators. The torque density and price of actuators has fallen dramatically since Ben Katz's MIT work on mini cheetah. The actuators on the Unitree G1 based on that work are powerful for their size and near”
The author disputes the claim of no actuator progress: torque density and price have markedly improved since Ben Katz's work, and the Unitree G1's actuators, based on that work, deliver strong torque for their size and are near quasi-direct-drive.
Amazon Blue Jay
“we're actually accelerating the use of the underlying technology developed for Blue Jay.”
Amazon confirms it shut down the Blue Jay project after six months but says nearly all underlying technologies are being reused elsewhere.
Locus Vector AMR @ GEODIS
“GEODIS has seen remarkable results, with productivity improvements of 50%, thanks to implementing the Locus Vector AMR system.”
Locus Robotics claims a 50% productivity improvement for 3PL GEODIS after deploying its Vector AMR system.
LocusBots @ DHL
paraphrase“Un milliard de picks assistés par les AMR Locus chez DHL, présenté comme preuve de fiabilité à l'échelle.”
Locus Robotics announces one billion assisted picks at DHL, presented as proof of reliability at scale.
Exotec Skypod @ Cdiscount (C-Logistics)
“This collaboration has played a decisive role in transforming our logistics operations by significantly increasing storage capacity, boosting productivity.”
Cdiscount's logistics-subsidiary CEO credits a decade-long Exotec partnership with a decisive transformation of storage capacity and productivity.
6 River Systems (Shopify)
“that whole operation is running at a loss.”
A supply-chain consultant with 25 years in 3PL reports a warehouse running 6 River Systems robots is operating at a loss.
Brightpick Autopicker
“significant savings on labor... scaling is quite simple... we started with 48 robots and now we are over 100.”
An operations manager reports significant labor savings and easy scaling, going from 48 robots to over 100 since 2024.
Automatisation d'entrepôt (générique)
“In large warehouses, heavy upfront CapEx in robotics often ends up ROI-negative.”
A warehouse manager argues that heavy upfront robotics CapEx often ends up ROI-negative in large facilities.
Generalist model
““Our main goal is to make the best model in the world. And at the end of the day, I think it’s our model that’s going to be the moat that is going to differentiate us from others.””
Samantha Castellanos states the company’s main goal is to build the best model in the world, seen as the "moat" that will differentiate them from competitors. This emphasizes data and the model as the competitive advantage.
da Vinci
“Bypass surgery is just us putting on new fuel lines.”
Dr. Nels Carroll pictures bypass surgery as putting on new 'fuel lines' for the heart. The article describes using the da Vinci system to make the procedure less invasive and speed patient recovery.
Plaxtreme
“Bioxtreme’s Plaxtreme system used Error Augmentation-based technology for upper limb rehabilitation. | Source: Bioxtreme”
The image caption states that Bioxtreme's Plaxtreme system used Error Augmentation-based technology for upper limb rehabilitation, showing a robotic application in rehab. The example illustrates using robotics to amplify errors to drive neuroplasticity.
PxG economy series
““Every automation application has different performance requirements,””
SEW-EURODRIVE introduced the PxG economy series with three performance classes to better match planetary servo gear units to machine requirements and avoid over-specification. The range provides a lower-cost option while maintaining reliability and integration with SEW engineering tools.
robots
“While the timing of large automotive OEM projects and broader economic conditions will continue to influence quarterly results, the first-half data suggests manufacturers continue to view automation as a long-term investment in competitiveness,”
A3 notes that despite the timing of large OEM projects and broader economic conditions, first-half data indicate manufacturers view automation as a long-term strategic investment.
TactaBot
“Humans have amazing brains, but AI is catching up,”
Tacta Systems unveiled TactaBot, combining the Tacta Hand, a Skill Capture system, and a Dexterous Intelligence model to automate high-skilled manufacturing tasks.
PSC
“The acquired patented technology is revolutionary in that it outperforms all other servo gearboxes on the market, represents a highly differentiated solution for high-precision applications, and is a strong fit within GAM’s broader motion control strategy,”
GAM’s CEO calls the acquired patented technology “revolutionary,” saying it outperforms other servo gearboxes and fits well within GAM’s motion control strategy. GAM plans to support and build on the platform.
Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory
“The College of Design, Construction and Planning is most grateful for Autodesk’s tremendous support for the Industrialized Construction program and the naming of the Autodesk Design and Make Laboratory.”
Chimay Anumba thanks Autodesk for its significant support and the naming of the laboratory, emphasizing that the partnership can transform the construction industry and better prepare students.
Reimagine Robotics
““A useful robot should be able to learn from the person doing the work,””
Jonathan Scholz says a useful robot should be able to learn directly from the person doing the work, by demonstration and on-the-job correction. He frames this as learning 'on the job.'
twisterchain
““Research in the industry’s largest test laboratories constantly yields innovations and more security for users,””
Igus states that its large test laboratories continuously produce innovations and increase security for users. The remark accompanies the launch of the twisterchain energy chain for industrial robots.
Universal Robots
“Our strategy to capture test and robotics opportunities from wafer to AI data center has driven another record quarter,”
Greg Smith credits the record quarter to Teradyne’s wafer-to-AI data center strategy, which captures test and robotics opportunities across the value chain.
Haas HC10 / Universal Robots
“URs the joints break... We have a dozen Universal Robotics cobots around 5 years old, they are still going strong.”
A CNC shop-floor thread shows split views: UR joints breaking for some, a dozen 5-year-old UR cobots still going strong for others.
FANUC CRX + caméras Cognex
“Letzten Monat haben wir zwei Fanuc-Cobots in Betrieb genommen... kleiner, einfach einzurichten... es dauerte nicht lange.”
A German user reports commissioning two FANUC CRX cobots, describing them as compact and easy to set up despite a short learning curve.
Universal Robots vs Kinova vs FANUC
“people were complaining bitterly about Universal Robots' software quality.”
While scoping a university project, a user finds repeated complaints about Universal Robots' software quality compared to FANUC and Kinova.
Universal Robots (générique)
“Reality is they are hard to justify this way, they get purchased for a specific purpose.”
A machinist highlights the gap between cobots marketed as portable and flexible and the reality of them being bought for one fixed purpose.
Universal Robots (générique)
“They are incredibly unreliable, overly complicated and a pain to work on.”
An engineer compares Universal Robots unfavorably to Denso industrial robots, calling them unreliable and a pain to maintain.
Universal Robots vs robot industriel
“every time I've been asked to put in a cobot, I've replaced it with an industrial robot.”
An automation engineer says every cobot he installed was replaced by a classic industrial robot within a few months.
Analog Garage
““We are excited to welcome ADI back as a cornerstone sponsor,””
Analog Devices has renewed its strategic sponsorship of MassRobotics, providing technical expertise and mentorship through its Analog Garage incubator to help startups accelerate development of commercial physical systems.
DroneDeploy
“I am very excited to bring DroneDeploy’s outstanding team, technology and track record of customer success to Procore,”
Procore is acquiring DroneDeploy for about $845M in cash to integrate DroneDeploy's visual perception platform. The aim is to accelerate Procore's AI strategy and provide digital co-workers that monitor, interpret, and act on construction site data.
Sereact (métriques commerciales)
“Every operating metric Sereact publishes, 500M picks, 98% accuracy, 100+ live systems, is self-reported with no independent audit.”
An independent analysis notes that Sereact's public metrics (picks, accuracy, live systems) are all self-reported with no independent audit.
Amazon Blue Jay (manipulation en bacs non structurés)
paraphrase“Coût de fabrication élevé et complexité d'installation ont poussé Amazon à interrompre Blue Jay après seulement 6 mois.”
The Robot Report attributes Blue Jay's shutdown to the high manufacturing cost and installation complexity of the multi-arm sortation system.
Sereact Cortex @ MS Direct AG (Suisse)
“the Sereact solution now independently processes around 1,500 orders per day, even during night shifts.”
MS Direct reports the Sereact solution now independently processes around 1,500 orders per day, including night shifts, without item-specific retraining.
OpenPI pi0.5, NVIDIA GR00T N1.6, SmolVLA (bin-to-bin)
“Best model: 5% of human throughput, needs help every 4 minutes.”
The first independent PhAIL benchmark shows the best VLA model tested reaches only 5% of human throughput in real bin picking.
Photoneo (acquisition par Zebra)
“Photoneo comes with ready customers and a go-to-market channel, already partially integrated.”
VDC Research assesses that Photoneo brings Zebra a ready customer base and a go-to-market channel that is already partially integrated.
Covariant (rachat Amazon)
paraphrase“Covariant est décrite comme une 'zombie company' maintenue sur le papier pour percevoir un paiement de licence 2025.”
A whistleblower complaint describes Covariant as a 'zombie company' kept alive on paper only to collect its final 2025 licensing payment from Amazon.
Covariant Brain @ Obeta (Allemagne)
“operating reliably and cost effectively in a real warehouse in Germany for the last four months.”
IEEE Spectrum documents Covariant's first real commercial deployment, running reliably and cost-effectively for four months in a German warehouse.
Prime Air
““Customers already turn to Amazon for fast same- and next-day delivery, and Prime Air provides them an even speedier option when they need it, with deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes,””
David Carbon says Prime Air provides customers an even speedier delivery option than Amazon’s standard fast shipping, with deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes. The statement highlights Amazon’s rapid expansion of the service.
Essentials
“designing motion systems that fit naturally within high-voltage environments without over-specifying the solution”
Kollmorgen recommends right-sizing axes instead of over-specifying systems for 400–480V environments. Its Essentials line is extended to high-voltage to simplify integration and reduce complexity.
CH32V003, CH32H417, Baochip-1x
“This blog post is very defensive and argumentative, which I guess is fair considering Dmitry's post is similarly inflammatory, but most of it was really not convincing: > Simply put, the things a high-end CPU needs are diametrically opposed to the things a small cost-saving microcontroller core”
The author challenges the claim that a single ISA cannot span from tiny MCUs to high-end CPUs by citing concrete RISC‑V parts on their desk (CH32V003, CH32H417, Baochip). They also note that adding an MMU to an open RISC‑V core (VexRISC‑V / Baochip) demonstrates RISC‑V's configurability compared with ARM's fixed core-family choices.
Luna
“I have been running it on my M5 Mac and was impressed with how well it worked with Pi coder. It can genuinely work as an assistant fully locally. It helps me configure Dockerfiles, fixed a couple of errors in a test Nuxt app, and so forth. Not very fast at 20 tps (8-bit quant for total memory usage”
The author ran a local model on an M5 Mac with Pi coder: it worked well as a coding assistant (helped with Dockerfiles and Nuxt errors) but was limited in performance (~20 tps, ~30 GB with 8-bit quant). By contrast, using Luna via API solved the issue in ~30s for $0.02, making local runs currently uneconomical despite privacy and vendor-lock advantages.
GLM-5.2 (UD IQ3_S quant)
“The thing that blows me away is it does this at one quarter the total parameter count of K3 (and 40% active parameter count). There's plenty of room at the bottom. > How are you all toying with running this kind of thing in a mega quantized way locally? Sure, let me answer that in excessive detail.”
Hands-on report running the UD IQ3_S quant of GLM-5.2 (~288 GiB) locally on an i9-13900HX system with 64 GiB DDR5-5200, NVMe Evo 980 and an RTX Pro 6000: token generation ≈0.7 t/s, not interactive. The author criticizes poor memory-hierarchy usage by local inference backends (llama.cpp MoE offload issues) and suggests streaming-focused frameworks like DS4 or Colibri.
Cascadia
“Hey everyone, we’ve been working on a project called https://cascadia.to which allows you to shard LLMs across Intel-based machines and perform inference across CPUs/GPUs/NPUs. To get it functioning, we split models into shards and pre-compiled them to OpenVINO IR graphs. Since then, we’ve been”
Hands-on report on Cascadia, an open-source (Apache 2.0) runtime to shard LLMs and run inference on Intel hardware using OpenVINO IR graphs. Concrete results: an 8B model on two Intel PCs via iGPUs ≈43 tok/s (64.67 tok/s after adding a PC), a 70B sharded model 3.1× faster than basic sharding, and a 39‑PC experiment (~1 tok/s on CPU); project is in alpha.
Einride Driver
““This collaboration is a testament to DAF’s commitment to innovation and future-proofing the logistics sector,””
DAF Trucks is partnering with Einride to integrate Einride's autonomous system into its premium platform, aiming for more efficient, safer and sustainable freight. The quote emphasizes DAF's commitment to innovation and future-proofing logistics.
Skyhammer
“This raise is testament to the incredible work of the entire Cambridge Aerospace team,”
The CEO of Cambridge Aerospace says the funding round is proof of the team's great work and will enable scaling of manufacturing to meet threats and allied needs.
SuperDrive
“Every six months, we publish our commercial readiness metrics because they provide a transparent view into our progress,”
David Liu says PlusAI publishes its commercial readiness metrics every six months to provide a transparent view of its progress toward large-scale autonomous truck deployment. The company is improving its SuperDrive software and targets commercial launches in 2027.
Radeis Extension
““Cyber-safety validation must become a standard part of robotics development,””
Max Cheng (VicOne) says cyber-safety validation should become a standard part of robotics development. VicOne offers the Radeis Extension for NVIDIA Isaac Sim to simulate and test these cyber-physical scenarios.
dabft
“I don't expect you to believe me, even though that's the intent of the methods of attack and appropriation. But this is happening. I have proof of most, solid evidence of the rest. July 25: Building app as newbie, solve AI hallucination and bias. File non-provisional Sept 2nd, 1.5 months in. Began”
First-person report claiming development and PyPI deployment of a two-mode, hallucination- and bias-free CLI agent called “dabft” for quant finance, with a reported 17% improvement in alpha floor. The author also mentions publishing “dredd_core”, filing a non-provisional patent, and experiencing appropriation/harassment issues.
Zoox robotaxi
““The updates we’ve made to this iteration of our purpose-built robotaxi continue to further distinguish the Zoox experience from anything else available today,””
Chris Stoffel states the updates to this iteration of the robotaxi further distinguish the Zoox experience from anything else available today.
miniaturized actuators
““With space becoming increasingly commercialized, there is real demand for affordable, versatile, and scalable mass-production of robotic systems that can function in difficult environments,””
HEBI Robotics won a NASA SBIR Phase I contract to fast-track miniaturized high-torque-density actuators for SmallSats and harsh environments. The company aims to bridge the gap between low-cost hobby servos and expensive custom space robotics systems.
Codex
“I used to be a heavy shell and IDE user and now I ask my local AI to do the majority of computing tasks I used to do by hand. Codex/similar harnesses allow me a digital workspace where I can organize both short-term and long-horizon tasks and build a "journal" of my computational history. I journal”
The author reports a hands-on use of Codex/local agents to take over most shell and IDE tasks (file renames, ffmpeg conversions, code edits, workspace organization), while still performing QA and review passes. Their workflow has been radically changed in a short time, despite some imperfections.
Claude
“I have a weird issue with using AI for coding. I can code something entirely by myself at my baseline speed; call it 1x. Or I can use Claude to do it, and it does it in 1/10 - 1/4 of the time. The problem, however, is that to review Claude’s code properly takes 2-3x the amount of time it would have”
The author reports hands-on use of Claude for coding: the model produces code much faster but reviewing it takes 2–3× longer, which can lead to risky 'commit and hope' behavior instead of proper review.
Scale
“its network collects more than 1,000 hours of demonstration data per day;”
Scale AI says its network collects more than 1,000 hours of demonstration data per day, highlighting its role as a data factory for robotics and its capacity to feed model training.
DoorDash Air
““We want drone delivery to work for any merchant, anywhere,””
DoorDash earned FAA Part 135 certification and is launching DoorDash Air. Harrison Shih emphasizes the goal of making drone delivery work for any merchant, anywhere.
OpenPI, GR00T, ACT, SmolVLA (bin-to-bin picking, Franka FR3)
“Best model: 64 UPH.”
The independent PhAIL benchmark puts the best VLA model at 64 units per hour, versus 330 for human teleoperation on the same hardware.
Hugging Face SO-100
“LeRobot partnered with @therobotstudio to release the SO-100 arm, a high-performance robotic arm for around $100.”
The announcement of the roughly $100 SO-100 arm is welcomed as a major accessibility breakthrough for open-source robotics.
Hugging Face SO-101
“SO-101 are the first robot arms any AI builder should buy.”
Hugging Face's CEO calls the SO-101 the first robot arm any AI builder should buy.
SmolVLA sur SO-101 (LeRobot)
“it worked alright but it didn't work 100 percent of the time.”
A user reports mixed results fine-tuning SmolVLA on an SO-101 arm: the pretrained model failed outright, and the fine-tuned version still isn't fully reliable.
SO-101 assemblé par un particulier
paraphrase“L'installation Ubuntu 24.04 en bare-metal a causé le moins de problèmes ; macOS/Windows/WSL possibles mais source fréquente de soucis.”
An IoT engineer documents his first full SO-101 build, finding bare-metal Ubuntu 24.04 the least troublesome setup versus macOS/Windows/WSL.
NVIDIA GR00T N1 sur SO-101
“I tried and it worked... Excited to play with this on the SO-101. Great timing for the Lerobot hackathon!”
Community feedback on the Hugging Face blog welcomes successful GR00T N1 fine-tuning on the low-cost SO-101 arm.
pi0 / pi0.5 (Physical Intelligence)
“pi0 always chooses the most common action it has seen, do nothing.”
An independent academic evaluation by Penn's PAL Lab finds pi0 freezes when the wrist camera is fully occluded, defaulting to 'do nothing'.
Christian Verbrugge · D·Fairy
15 years at KUKA on automotive OEM programs (€100M), now focused on edge AI and autonomous agents. I support robotics and embodied AI companies on their EMEA market entry: OEM and Tier 1 access, co-funded pilots, AI Act readiness.
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