What happened
Business Insider reports that Hugging Face cofounder Thomas Wolf said customers placed more than $2.6 million worth of Microduck orders during the robot’s first 24 hours on sale. The $399 robot is now listed with an estimated four-to-six-month delivery window for new orders, rather than the previously targeted Christmas delivery.
Business Insider reports that Hugging Face cofounder Thomas Wolf wrote on X that customers ordered more than $2.6 million worth of Microducks during the product’s first 24 hours on sale. The report says Wolf had previously announced that preorders had exceeded $1 million roughly six hours after the product was unveiled. Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for more information about the orders. The reported total therefore remains a company executive’s public claim, not an independently audited sales figure. The article does not provide the number of units ordered, the geographic distribution of buyers, or the share of orders that could later be canceled.
The Microduck is priced at $399 and is described by Business Insider as a nearly 10-inch-tall, two-legged, one-eyed robot. According to the report, it has cameras, a lidar scanner, two motion sensors, 15 motors, and a removable rechargeable battery that lasts about an hour depending on use. Its built-in behaviors include walking, sitting, standing, kicking a small soccer ball, picking up small objects with a plastic mandible, and recovering after a fall. A separate $39 accessory pack adds rollers that let it skate. These specifications and capabilities are reported from the article and company materials referenced by Business Insider; the source does not provide independent testing of performance or battery life.
Business Insider says Pollen Robotics unveiled Microduck on Thursday, with first deliveries initially targeted for around Christmastime. A red notice on the checkout page now says the companies can no longer promise Christmas delivery for new orders and estimates four to six months, while stating that production is being increased and orders will be shipped on a first-ordered, first-shipped basis. The article identifies Pollen as a French robotics company acquired by Hugging Face last year. Microduck follows Pollen’s Reachy Mini, an assembly-required desktop robot aimed at developers and robotics enthusiasts. The new product is intended to move around rather than remain on a desk.
Source details: businessinsider.com ↗
Why it matters
Microduck is a small, programmable robot designed to move through the physical world rather than remain a software-based chatbot. The reported demand offers an early indication that developers and robotics enthusiasts may be willing to buy consumer hardware for experimenting with embodied AI, although the sales figure comes from Hugging Face and was not independently confirmed by Business Insider.
Microduck places AI-enabled behavior in a physical consumer product, making the story relevant to the transition from software assistants to embodied machines. Business Insider describes a broader industry effort involving companies such as Tesla and 1X, as well as Hyundai’s interest in consumer robot distribution. Those examples provide context, but the concrete development in this report is the claimed demand for Microduck and the resulting delivery backlog. The product is not presented as a general household assistant; the article says it is aimed primarily at developers and robotics enthusiasts.
The robot’s programmable design could make it useful as a relatively accessible platform for experimenting with movement, perception, and control. Business Insider reports that users can train new movements with a virtual Microduck in a physics simulator and transfer the resulting behavior to the physical robot. Developers can export a trained behavior as an ONNX file, deploy it on the robot, and share it with the community. If this workflow performs as described, it could lower some barriers to physical-AI experimentation by connecting simulation, software distribution, and a commercially available machine. The source does not establish how many users can do this successfully or how much technical expertise is required.
The reported backlog also highlights a practical constraint in consumer robotics: interest can arrive before manufacturing and support systems are ready. A four-to-six-month estimate affects buyers, developers planning projects, and anyone evaluating whether the product can serve as a dependable research or education platform. It also complicates interpretation of the $2.6 million figure, because orders are not necessarily completed deliveries or long-term users. Business Insider’s account does not independently confirm the total, the company’s production capacity, the rate of returns, or whether the robot’s capabilities justify the purchase price for people outside the enthusiast market.
What to watch next
The key tests are whether Pollen Robotics can fulfill the reported orders, whether the robot’s movement-training tools work reliably outside demonstrations, and whether developers create useful behaviors beyond the included functions. Delivery timing, production capacity, software support, and the robot’s performance in ordinary homes remain unknown.
The first priority is fulfillment. Business Insider reports that new orders may take four to six months and that Christmas delivery is no longer promised. Follow-up reporting should establish whether Pollen Robotics meets that estimate, how many units are produced, and whether existing customers receive their robots on schedule. The article provides no confirmed unit count or independently verified production plan, so the size of the backlog cannot be calculated from the reported revenue figure alone.
The next question is whether Microduck’s software pipeline works consistently in real conditions. The source says developers can train behaviors in simulation and transfer them to hardware, but it does not report standardized tests, failure rates, safety protections, or how well behaviors transfer between different floors, lighting conditions, objects, and home environments. Independent reviews should examine locomotion, object handling, recovery after falls, sensor reliability, battery duration, noise, maintenance, and the limits of the robot’s plastic components.
Finally, watch whether Microduck develops into a durable platform or remains a novelty product for enthusiasts. Useful signals would include sustained developer activity, accessible documentation, software updates, shared behaviors that work for many owners, and evidence that the company can support a growing user base. The source also places the launch alongside Business Insider’s separate report that Nvidia was in talks to acquire Hugging Face at a valuation above $13 billion; that reported transaction is not confirmed here and should not be treated as completed. It is also unknown whether the reported Microduck demand will affect any potential deal or Hugging Face’s broader strategy.
