Hugging Face's Microduck Robot Surpasses $2.6 Million in Orders Within 24 Hours

It appears that many people want a robot duck standing nearly 10 inches (about 25 cm) tall.

On Friday local time, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf posted on X that within the first 24 hours of Microduck's launch, consumer orders had already exceeded $2.6 million. Just on Thursday, about six hours after the product's release, Wolf revealed that Microduck's pre-order amount had surpassed $1 million.

Priced at $399, the Microduck was officially unveiled on Thursday local time. It was launched by French robotics company Pollen Robotics, which was acquired by Hugging Face last year. Pollen Robotics plans to begin delivering the first batch of products around Christmas.

It now appears that Microduck may already be experiencing an order backlog.

"The community has ordered a massive amount of ducks," reads a red banner at the top of the Pollen Robotics checkout page. "We can no longer guarantee Christmas delivery for newly ordered Microducks, but we are accelerating production. Orders will be shipped sequentially based on the order time.

The estimated delivery time for new orders is currently 4 to 6 months.

Microduck is also part of a broader industry trend of bringing AI out of chatbots and into consumer-facing physical devices, enabling robots to perform tasks far beyond just vacuuming.

Currently, AI-equipped robots are primarily confined to research labs and factory floors. But today, companies including Tesla and 1X are exploring ways to bring robots into ordinary consumers' homes, and Hyundai Motor has even proposed the idea of selling robots through car dealerships.

Microduck is the second consumer-facing robot launched by Pollen Robotics, following the square-headed Reachy Mini. That device is a desktop robot requiring user assembly, which can be programmed by users to engage in AI-driven conversations or wiggle its antennas. Both products are primarily aimed at developers and robotics enthusiasts.

Hugging Face states that Microduck is also programmable. Featuring two legs and a single eye, the robot, unlike its desktop-bound predecessor, can walk around on its own.

Out of the box, Microduck can walk, sit, stand, kick a small soccer ball, and pick up small objects with its plastic beak. Even if it falls over, it can stand back up on its own. When paired with a separate $39 roller accessory kit, it can even glide across the floor.

These actions are merely a starting point for further user development. Developers can use a virtual version of Microduck in a physical simulator to train new actions through trial and error before transferring the trained behaviors to the physical robot.

For example, on Friday, Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue posted a video on X showing the little robot performing a gymnastics routine trained by a user.

Other videos demonstrate the duck picking up small objects such as markers and socks.

Once new actions are trained, developers can export them as ONNX files and deploy them to their own robots. Pollen Robotics says users can also "share your newly developed behaviors with the community."

Microduck is also equipped with a camera, LiDAR, and two motion sensors, all of which developers can utilize when writing their own software.

Microduck is powered by a removable, rechargeable battery that lasts for about 1 hour, depending on usage.

Just one day before the robot's launch, Business Insider reported that chipmaker Nvidia is in talks to acquire Hugging Face, a deal that could value the AI startup at over $13 billion.