Hugging Face's Robot Duck Microduck Surpasses $2.6M in Sales Within 24 Hours

A French robotics company Pollen Robotics' desktop robot Microduck has set a sales record on its launch day. The $399 robot duck received over $2.6 million in orders within 24 hours, far exceeding expectations. Earlier, pre-orders had already surpassed $1 million just 6 hours after the product launch.

Microduck is programmable, can walk, sit, stand, even kick a ball and pick up small objects, and can get back up after falling. Developers can train new actions in a physics simulator and deploy the results to the physical robot. It comes with a camera, LiDAR, and motion sensors, and the battery lasts about an hour.

Pollen Robotics plans to start delivering initial orders around Christmas, but there is already a backlog, with new orders expected to wait 4 to 6 months. Microduck is part of a broader trend of AI moving from chatbots to physical devices. Companies like Tesla and 1X are exploring home robots, and Hyundai has even proposed selling robots through car dealerships.