Overview

Feather is the first robot from California startup Feather Robotics, which made its public debut in late September 2026. The company was founded in 2025 in East Palo Alto by Hoa Duc Mai and Parsa Bakhtiari, who previously worked at Kind Humanoid and Tesla. The robot is not a humanoid in the strict sense, but rather an open platform for research and development in embodied AI.

Construction

A lifting column sits on a square mobile base measuring 50 by 51 centimeters, which stretches the robot from 120 to 180 centimeters while traveling at 150 millimeters per second. Two arms, each one meter long with seven joints, hang from it, giving the device a total of 23 degrees of freedom. Each arm can handle a continuous load of 1.8 kilograms and up to 6.8 kilograms for short periods. End effectors include six-degree-of-freedom hands or parallel grippers, and custom attachments are explicitly permitted. The total weight is 105 kilograms.

Technology and AI

The wheeled base operates holonomically, moving in any direction without turning, and reaches 1.3 meters per second. Computing options include a Jetson Nano, Jetson Orin AGX, or Jetson Thor depending on requirements and budget. At the head, you can choose a Zed 2i, Zed X, or Zed X Mini camera, plus additional cameras at the wrists. Operation includes a 25-centimeter diagonal display and a four-channel microphone array. Programming is done via a Python SDK. Two 48-volt, 50-ampere-hour batteries can be swapped during operation.

Market Significance

Feather Robotics pursues the idea of an open toolkit, comparable to what Android has been for mobile phones. According to the company, over one million US dollars in revenue has already been generated, with ongoing deliveries. This hits a nerve because many laboratories don't need a humanoid with legs, but rather an affordable platform with two dexterous arms. Competition comes from Hello Robot with the Stretch, from Galaxea, and from a number of Chinese suppliers of wheeled dual-arm robots.