The app store for robots has arrived: Hugging Face launches open-source Reachy Mini App Store with 200+ apps - VentureBeat
While Large Language Models (LLMs) have mastered general-purpose coding by training on massive repositories like Microsoft's GitHub, the volume of code specific to robotics remains "tiny" by comparison (though Github does contain likely the largest existent...
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The most recent headlines show a surge of activity around humanoid robots. In early May, Figure AI unveiled a video of two of its Helix 02 humanoids making a bed together, highlighting new training that lets the robots open doors, push furniture and drape clothing, though the company has not announced a consumer launch date. Figure AI, valued at $39 billion, is racing against rivals such as Tesla’s Optimus and other emerging makers. At the same time, Genesis AI introduced its GENE‑26.5 “brain,” a foundation model paired with a human‑hand‑shaped robotic gripper that it says overcomes the data bottleneck that has limited dexterous manipulation, allowing robots to perform tasks previously possible only with human hands. The company demonstrated the system on both Intel and NVIDIA hardware and is building a massive “human skill library” from egocentric video and internet footage to train the model. In China, Unitree released the GD01, a ten‑foot‑tall, half‑ton mech that can switch between bipedal and quadrupedal modes and is priced at $650 000, marking a bold entry into personal‑size humanoid platforms. Meanwhile, a Tokyo university opened an unmanned laboratory featuring ten robots, including the Maholo LabDroid humanoid, to automate medical experiments and eventually conduct entire research projects without human staff. These developments illustrate a rapid expansion of humanoid capabilities, from household assistance and industrial dexterity to large‑scale, autonomous research environments.
While Large Language Models (LLMs) have mastered general-purpose coding by training on massive repositories like Microsoft's GitHub, the volume of code specific to robotics remains "tiny" by comparison (though Github does contain likely the largest existent, publicly accessible library of robotics code to date, with more than 17,000 different repositories or "repos" dedicated to the field).
This lack of data has meant that, until now, AI agents were relatively poor at understanding the physical abstractions and firmware requirements of hardware. The new Hugging Face Reachy Mini App Store already hosts a library of over 200 community-built applications, and Reachy Mini owners will be able to download any of these free of charge to start (unlike smartphone apps, there's no monetization option for app creators on this store — yet).
The Reachy Mini App Store will also offer Reachy Mini owners — around 10,000 units have been sold so far since last year — an easy means of building their own custom apps for the tiny, stationary desktop robot with built-in camera eyes, speaker, and microphone, via Hugging Face's existing, AI-powered agent called "ML Intern." Other community-driven applications include:
Emotional Damage Chess: A robot that plays chess and mocks the user’s blunders. Reachy Phone Home: An anti-procrastination tool that detects when a user picks up their phone and tells them to get back to work. Language Tutor: A physical companion that listens to speech and corrects accents. F1 Race Commentator: A desk companion that calls Formula 1 races live as they happen.
Delangue himself related to VentureBeat that in only a few hours, he built an app for his own Reachy Mini robot at the Hugging Face Miami office to have the robot act as a receptionist.