MicroDuck

Microduck press and media: verified coverage, facts and quotes

Every verified Microduck media story in one page, with the fast facts, a paste-ready description, the official press kit and the contact for interviews and review units.
Oct 16, 2026

The Microduck robot on a studio table while a camera photographs it

If you are writing about Microduck, this is the page to steal from: the verified coverage list, the numbers in one block, a description you can paste, and where the official photos live. Everything here is checked against the official press kit and the specs page - if a number matters, quote it from here or from the kit rather than from a summary.

Fast facts for a deadline

  • What it is: a 25 cm biped duck robot with 15 motors - it walks, sits, kicks, grabs with its beak and gets back on its feet.
  • Price: $399 before taxes and shipping, one-time payment. Optional packs: Charger $39, Accessory $39, Dev $119.
  • Pre-orders: open since 27 August 2026.
  • Deliveries: first units are targeted for delivery before Christmas 2026.
  • Markets: North America and Europe at launch.
  • Colourways: Cream, Graphite, Lavender and Sky.
  • Numbers: 15 motors, under 800 g, a camera, LiDAR and two IMUs, seven trained moves, a 50 Hz onboard policy loop - the full sheet is on the specs page.
  • Who makes it: Pollen Robotics, the Bordeaux-based robotics team at Hugging Face, founded in 2016 by former Inria researchers. Microduck is their second consumer robot, after Reachy Mini.
  • Where it is sold: direct at microduck.homes, as a pre-order - see where to buy.
  • Open source: the software stack (SDK, simulator, reinforcement-learning training and sim-to-real tooling) publishes as Apache-2.0 on GitHub. What that covers exactly is below.

Selected coverage

The launch-week stories we can point you to directly:

Launch coverage also ran through Axios, CNBC, Engadget, The Register, Mashable, Business Insider, Digital Trends and Hackster.io - search the outlet plus "Microduck" if you need the archive.

A description you can paste

Microduck, in three sentences. Microduck is a 25 cm biped robot with 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR and a grasping beak. It is playable out of the box, and its open-source software stack lets owners train new behaviours in simulation and deploy them to the robot. Pre-orders are open at $399, with first deliveries targeted before Christmas 2026.

About the maker. Pollen Robotics builds open-source robots from Bordeaux, France. Founded in 2016 by former Inria researchers, the team joined Hugging Face in April 2025 and forms its robotics team. Microduck is their second consumer robot, after Reachy Mini.

What "open source" covers here

Please keep this one exact, because it is the most commonly mangled fact about the robot: the software is open source (Apache-2.0) - the SDK, the simulator, the reinforcement-learning stack and the sim-to-real workflow. The mechanical and electronic design files are not published, so Microduck is not open-source hardware.

Also still being finalised, and best treated as provisional: camera resolution and field of view, LiDAR range, radio variants, SDK language coverage and any age recommendation. When they settle, they land on the specs page.

Photos, logos and the full kit

The official press kit carries the launch photography, the die-cut stickers, the wordmark and a plain-text fact sheet, free to use in stories about Microduck: pollen-robotics.com/microduck/press-kit. The wordmark rules are on the same page - keep its colours and proportions as they are.

Interviews, review units and follow-ups

  • Interviews, review units and extra assets: handled by Pollen Robotics - the press kit page carries the press contact.
  • Orders, shipping and anything account-shaped: support@microduck.homes, ideally with your order number.
  • Product updates: the updates page is where release news lands first.

Common questions

Is Microduck reviewable? Yes - review units and extra assets are arranged through the press contact on the official press kit.

Can I use the photos? Yes, for coverage of Microduck, from the official kit - keep the wordmark untouched and do not recolour it.

Is this the same Microduck as "microduck.shop" or the other stores in the results? No. Microduck is sold in exactly one place; the official sources page walks through how to check any listing.

Where is the full spec sheet? The specs page holds every number, and the FAQ answers the non-numeric questions.

Where to go next

Microduck press and media: verified coverage, facts and quotes