Hugging Face's Microduck: a US$399 robot you can train yourself, and getting one in Australia

Hugging Face announced Microduck on 27 August 2026 and opened pre-orders the same day. It is a small walking robot shaped like a duck, 25 centimetres tall and 780 grams, built by Pollen Robotics, the French company Hugging Face bought in 2025. The pre-order price is US$399 before tax and shipping, in four colours.

What it does

It arrives ready to play with. Fifteen motors move the whole body, so it walks, crouches, sits, picks things up with a beak that opens and closes, roller-skates and gets back up after most ordinary falls. A gamepad comes in the box for driving it around.

It sees with a wide angle camera on the front and a small depth sensor that reads distance, and it has microphones and a speaker. A small computer inside runs it, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Power comes from a removable camera-style battery, the NP-F550, which Pollen rates at about an hour of use.

What is open

The software is the point of it. Everything that makes it move is open source, including the tools for teaching it new behaviours. A new skill is trained in a computer simulation first and then loaded onto the real robot. It comes with its behaviours already trained, and anyone who wants it to do something else can train that.

The hardware stays closed. Pollen has said it has no plans to publish the design, so the duck itself is a product you buy from them.

Getting one in Australia

Pollen still lists the launch markets as the United States, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Japan and South Korea, with more countries later. Australia is not on that list, and there is no Australian seller. On 27 October the team behind Microduck said it is looking at demand and plans to add more countries soon, without naming any or giving a date.

The wait has also grown. Demand outran production, and Pollen now says new pre-orders should expect to ship after April 2027, first ordered, first shipped. The Christmas 2026 target applies to the earliest orders.

For anyone here who wants one before Australia is added, the route is a parcel forwarding service with an address in one of the launch countries. The bill is then the US$399, local tax in that country where it applies, the forwarder’s shipping to Australia, and 10 per cent GST on the way in. A warranty claim on a forwarded robot goes back overseas.

The only official place to order is Pollen’s own store. Several other websites now use the Microduck name and take orders or deposits, and none of them belong to Pollen.

When Pollen adds Australia, or a local store picks it up, this page will carry the Australian price.

House of Robots owns none of these machines and has tested none. Every figure above is published by Pollen Robotics or Hugging Face and was read on 28 October 2026.

Sources: Pollen Robotics’ Microduck store page and shipping policy for the price, specifications, launch markets and delivery dates, read 28 October 2026. Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics announcement materials, 27 August 2026.