Reachy 2

Overview

The Pollen Robotics Reachy 2 is a French open-source humanoid upper body on a mobile base, available at $70,000. Pollen Robotics has built a strong reputation in the European robotics research community through its open-source approach, making the Reachy 2 a popular platform for academic and applied AI research. The open-source software stack gives developers full visibility and modification rights, which proprietary platforms do not offer.

Key Specifications

The Reachy 2 consists of a dual-arm upper body mounted on a mobile wheeled base. It is priced at $70,000. The platform runs on an open-source SDK with ROS 2 compatibility, making it straightforward to integrate with existing robotics research toolchains. Detailed arm payload and joint specifications are available in Pollen Robotics' public documentation and GitHub repositories.

Use Cases

Robotics research, AI manipulation policy development, and HRI (human-robot interaction) studies are the primary use cases. European universities and corporate AI labs have deployed Reachy 2 for teleoperation research and imitation learning datasets. UK institutions with existing ROS 2 workflows will find integration straightforward. The open-source approach also makes it suitable for education programmes at postgraduate level.

Buying Used

At $70,000, used Reachy 2 units occasionally appear through university surplus and research programme completions. The open-source software stack means that firmware and software access is guaranteed regardless of manufacturer support continuity, which is a significant advantage for used-unit buyers compared to proprietary platforms. Mechanical inspection should focus on shoulder and wrist joint condition given the arm-intensive workloads typical of this platform.

Alternatives to Consider

Direct open-source humanoid competitors are limited; the closest comparison is the Fourier GR-1 research variant. For buyers wanting closed-source but well-supported service humanoids at a similar price, the PAL Robotics TIAGo and the Rainbow Robotics RB-Y1 are relevant alternatives.