SoftBank's Pepper was one of the most talked-about robots of the 2010s. Commercially launched in 2014, it appeared in bank branches, shopping centres, hotel lobbies, and school classrooms around the world. SoftBank claimed it could recognise emotions. It could carry a conversation. It could make eye contact with a child and hold their attention.
Production stopped in 2021. SoftBank officially discontinued Pepper and has since wound down much of the cloud infrastructure that the robot's more interesting features depend on. The robot that once sold for upwards of £25,000 now trades on the UK secondary market for £2,000-5,000.
So who is buying used Peppers in 2026, and should you be one of them? This review gives you the honest picture.
What Pepper Is
Pepper is a wheeled humanoid robot - approximately 1.2 metres tall, with two articulated arms, a chest-mounted tablet display, and expressive LED eyes. It moves on an omnidirectional wheel base (not legs), which makes it far more stable and reliable for indoor navigation than true bipedal humanoids, but also means it cannot climb stairs, manage thresholds, or operate outdoors.
Key hardware specifications:
- Height: approximately 1.2 m
- Weight: approximately 28 kg
- Degrees of freedom: 20 (arms, head, hands, and hip)
- Mobility: omnidirectional wheeled base
- Display: 10.1-inch tablet screen in chest
- Sensors: laser, sonar, depth camera (head), RGB cameras, microphones
- Battery: rated for approximately 12 hours standby, significantly less under active use
- Operating system: NAOqi OS (Aldebaran/SoftBank)
The 20 DoF covers the arms, hands, head, and hip. Pepper's arms are expressive and gesture naturally, which contributed substantially to its reputation as a socially capable robot. The hands have limited gripper functionality - Pepper can gesture and point, but is not designed for manipulation tasks.
The chest tablet is one of Pepper's most practically useful features. It can display menus, images, videos, and interactive content, effectively turning Pepper into a highly mobile information kiosk with a more engaging physical presence than a static screen.
The Software Situation in 2026
This is the critical issue for anyone considering a used Pepper, and it deserves a full and honest explanation.
NAOqi OS: Pepper runs on NAOqi, the operating system developed by Aldebaran (acquired by SoftBank). NAOqi continues to run on existing Pepper units. The underlying OS is not broken - it is simply no longer receiving updates or security patches.
Choregraphe: SoftBank's visual programming environment for creating scripted behaviours on Pepper. You drag and drop behaviour blocks, sequence them, and deploy them to the robot. Choregraphe still works for offline scripted interactions. It is the primary tool for creating customer-facing experiences and educational content on Pepper. A version of Choregraphe can still be obtained and used with existing robots.
Python API: Python 2 was the primary scripted programming language for NAOqi. Python 2 itself is end-of-life. Some Python 3 community wrappers exist, but the official SDK is Python 2. This is an increasingly significant limitation as tooling and libraries age out.
ROS support: Limited. There is a ROS bridge for Pepper, maintained by the community, but it is incomplete and unreliable compared to purpose-built ROS platforms. Do not buy a Pepper expecting a smooth ROS2 integration.
Cloud services: This is where the situation deteriorates. SoftBank's cloud services for Pepper provided:
- Cloud-based natural language understanding (dialogues with the robot)
- Emotion recognition processing
- SoftBank's own application marketplace
- Remote fleet management features
All of these either no longer function or function only in degraded form in 2026. The specific cloud endpoints have been progressively shut down. What this means practically: if you bought a Pepper to run complex, context-aware dialogues powered by SoftBank's cloud NLU, that capability is largely gone. If you planned to use the emotion recognition features that Pepper was marketed on, those features are unreliable.
What still works without cloud connectivity:
- Scripted speech and gesture sequences (Choregraphe)
- Tablet display content
- Navigation and obstacle avoidance
- Sensor data access (cameras, microphones, distance sensors)
- Local Python scripting for behaviour logic
- The physical robot's hardware actuators and sensors
> Quick win: Treat a used Pepper as a scripted presentation platform with a robotic body, not as a conversational AI robot. If your use case fits that description, Pepper can still deliver good value. If you need genuine conversational AI, you will need to build your own integration using third-party NLU APIs - which is achievable but requires software development capability.
Who Is Buying Used Peppers in 2026
Despite the limitations, a real market for used Peppers exists in the UK. Buyers fall into a few clear categories:
Hospitality and reception: Hotels, visitor centres, and corporate reception areas where the robot is primarily a greeter and information display. The scripted interaction capability, combined with the impressive physical presence, does what these deployments need. A receptionist robot that says "Welcome, can I help you find..." and gestures to a tablet menu does not need cloud NLU.
Schools and universities (STEM education): Pepper is a compelling teaching tool. Students can program it using Choregraphe without deep technical knowledge, the robot's physical expressiveness makes programming immediately tangible, and the emotional engagement it generates is well-documented in educational research. Several UK universities continue to use Pepper units for this purpose.
Retail and exhibition pop-ups: Brands and agencies use Pepper for promotional events and retail activations where the robot's novelty generates attention. The tablet display is useful for interactive product demonstrations. Battery life limits session lengths, but for a 2-4 hour event appearance the robot is adequate.
Research (with caveats): Some academic research continues on Pepper, primarily in human-robot interaction studies where the robot's form factor and social expressiveness are the research object rather than the robot's autonomy capability. Researchers in this space know the limitations and work within them.
The Battery Problem
This deserves its own section because it is the single most important issue when buying a used Pepper.
Pepper's battery is an internal lithium pack. When it degrades - and after five-plus years of use and storage, many have - the robot becomes non-functional as a mobile unit. You can operate it tethered to mains power via a workaround, but this severely limits its usefulness in the deployment contexts where it makes sense.
Battery replacement for Pepper costs approximately £800-1,000 for the part, plus labour costs that are significant because the disassembly required is complex and few technicians in the UK have the relevant experience. Total battery replacement cost with fitting: £1,000-1,500.
A Pepper with a dead battery that you paid £3,000 for is a £4,000-4,500 problem to make mobile again.
What to request from any seller:
- A full-charge cycle test: charge the robot to 100%, then run it in active operation and record how long it lasts before reaching 20% charge. Compare against the rated figures for an understanding of true remaining capacity.
- The battery status from the NAOqi system monitor, which displays battery health indicators.
- Evidence that the robot has been stored with appropriate battery maintenance (not left uncharged for extended periods, which accelerates degradation).
> Quick win: If a seller will not provide a live battery test or refuses to let you see the battery status display, assume the worst. A robot with healthy batteries is easy to demonstrate. Resistance to battery testing almost always means the battery is degraded.
NAOqi Licence Transfer
Pepper's software includes licences tied to the specific robot unit. When buying used, you need to confirm:
- Whether the NAOqi licence is transferable to a new owner (it should be, but confirm it)
- Whether any third-party application licences for specific Pepper apps can be transferred
- Whether the seller's SoftBank account can be decoupled from the robot (for units that were registered to a business account that is now defunct, this can be an administrative complication)
Buying from a business that has gone into administration or liquidation can mean the robot is in a technically transferred but administratively complicated state. Work through these issues before completing the purchase.
Joint and Physical Condition
Pepper's 20 DoF give it a wide range of expressive motion but also 20 potential points of failure.
Shoulder joints: The shoulder joints are the most commonly reported wear point on Pepper. They support the weight of the arms through a lot of gestural motion. Test through the full range of shoulder motion and listen for any grinding or stiffness.
Head movement: The head has degrees of freedom for nodding and turning. Test these - a stuck head severely limits the expressiveness that is one of Pepper's primary features.
Hands: Pepper's hands have individual finger motion for gesture. The fingers are relatively fragile and units that have been handled by the public may have broken finger joints. Test all fingers and assess whether broken fingers affect your intended use case (for a receptionist robot that does not need to point precisely, this may be acceptable at a reduced price).
Tablet screen: The chest tablet is an LCD screen that is replaceable but not trivial to source. Check for dead pixels, cracked glass, or backlight issues. Test the touch sensitivity across the full screen.
Wheel base: Test Pepper's navigation on a flat hard floor. Listen for any unusual sounds from the wheel motors. Test turning in both directions and forward/backward movement.
See our broader used robot inspection guide for a general framework applicable to Pepper and other platforms.
Pricing and Value Assessment
Used Pepper pricing in the UK in 2026:
- Good condition, healthy battery, full accessories: £3,500-5,000
- Average condition, some cosmetic wear, battery may need attention: £2,000-3,500
- Poor condition, battery issues, incomplete accessories: £1,000-2,000 (high risk)
The upper end of this range represents approximately 15-20% of the original purchase price. For a robot that was originally £25,000+, this is substantial depreciation - but the depreciation reflects real limitations: the cloud wind-down, the ageing software ecosystem, and the ongoing maintenance liability.
Is a used Pepper good value? For the right buyer with the right use case: yes. For scripted reception, STEM education, and exhibition use cases that do not depend on cloud features, a Pepper in good condition at £2,500-3,500 with a healthy battery is a capable and engaging robot at a fraction of its new cost.
For anyone who needs current cloud connectivity, conversational AI out of the box, or long-term manufacturer support: the value is poor regardless of the price.
You can track Pepper listings and compare used values on our resale index. Our humanoid robot prices guide provides context on how Pepper compares to current alternatives at similar price points.
For comparison with the current generation of humanoid robots in this price range, see our best humanoid robots to buy used in 2026 guide, which covers both Pepper and newer alternatives.
Verdict
Pepper is not the robot it was marketed as in 2016. The cloud features that powered its most impressive demonstrations are largely non-functional. The software ecosystem is aging. Manufacturer support is gone.
But Pepper is still a physically capable, expressively designed, and visually striking robot that can deliver genuine value in specific use cases: scripted interactions in hospitality and retail, STEM education, and exhibition appearances. For these purposes, a well-maintained unit at £2,000-4,000 represents reasonable value in 2026 - provided you have done your battery checks and are buying with a clear-eyed view of what the robot can still do.
The key question to ask yourself before buying: does my use case depend on any cloud-connected Pepper features? If the answer is yes, look elsewhere. If the answer is no, Pepper may still earn its place.
Browse current Pepper listings on Robot AutoTrader and use our inspection guide to structure your evaluation. If you are weighing Pepper against current humanoid alternatives, the humanoid advanced category has listings for newer platforms that may suit your needs better.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a used SoftBank Pepper cost in the UK in 2026?
Used Pepper robots are currently trading at £2,000-5,000 in the UK depending on condition, battery health, tablet screen condition, and included accessories. This is a significant drop from the original launch price of over £25,000 when new. Units with known NAOqi licence transfer and working batteries command the higher end of this range.
Is SoftBank Pepper still supported?
No. SoftBank discontinued Pepper production in 2021 and has progressively wound down cloud services that Pepper relied on. Some cloud-dependent features such as certain emotion recognition and dialogue capabilities no longer function reliably or at all. Offline and scripted operations using Choregraphe or local Python code continue to work without cloud connectivity.
What can Pepper still do in 2026?
Pepper can still navigate, gesture, speak, display content on its tablet screen, and run scripted interaction programmes built with Choregraphe or Python locally. Emotion recognition and cloud-based NLU are largely non-functional due to SoftBank's cloud wind-down. It remains viable for scripted reception, STEM education demonstrations, and exhibition use cases.
What is the biggest risk when buying a used Pepper?
Battery health is the highest-risk item. Pepper's battery replacement costs approximately £800 or more and involves disassembly that many third-party engineers are reluctant to take on. A Pepper with a degraded battery that cannot hold charge becomes an expensive paperweight. Always request a full-charge runtime test before purchase.