Launch HN: Nori Robotics (YC S26) – A low-cost humanoid robot for development

Nori Robotics has launched a low-cost bimanual mobile robot for robotics developers and researchers, with hardware priced at $1,688. The company, based in San Francisco, says the goal is to make it easier to gather data, run long experiments, and test ideas across more than one robot at a time.

Founder Antonio says the project grew out of robotics research at Columbia, where teaching robots from human demonstrations ran into a simple problem: affordable hardware was hard to get. So he built one. After seven iterations, the current machine packs 19 degrees of freedom, two 7+1 DOF arms with a 1.5 kg payload per arm, a 55 kg telescoping lift, a differential wheeled base, four 720p RGB cameras, 2D lidar, a dual microphone array, a 432 Wh battery, and a Raspberry Pi 5 with 4 GB RAM.

The cost target was the hard part. Nori says the robot has more than 100 moving and structural parts, and that the bill adds up quickly once actuators, bearings, wiring, power delivery, and assembly are all in play. One reason the company stayed under $2,000, it says, was choosing high-ratio servos instead of QDD motors and using wheels rather than legs.

The system is built and assembled in San Francisco, and Nori says it was designed to be easy to manufacture and repair, with 3D files available for printed fixes. The company also released an open SDK with teleoperation and demonstration tools, plus a browser-based simulator for trying the robot out online.

Nori says it has already shipped its first robot and is building the next batch. The hardware can already handle basic cleaning, opening drawers, restocking shelves, and pouring beers. Heavy-duty models and VLAs run off-board through a computer or server, while SLAM and safety functions run on the robot itself.