Hugging Face, a subsidiary of Nvidia, launched the open-source robot Microduck (“Machine Duck”), which sparked a boom in pre-orders worldwide and a craze among domestic developers to replicate it. The product is priced at $399 and comes in four colors, with trained behaviors pre-installed and a software stack available. In just four days, the pre-order volume exceeded 10,000 units, with sales reaching $4.54 million. The first batch is expected to be delivered before Christmas 2026. The price of some domestic components has increased by more than five times, and the second-hand purchase price can reach up to 5,567 yuan. Developers such as Wang Xu and Lai Yifan assembled the replica by hand, and due to shortages in RK3566 chips and controllers, the cost was higher than the original version. Currently, third-party projects have been launched on GitHub, and some users are waiting or looking for alternative solutions to complete training and deployment.
Hugging Face, a subsidiary of Nvidia, launched the open-source robot Microduck (“Machine Duck”), which triggered a huge pre-order surge worldwide and a craze among domestic developers to replicate it. The product is priced at $399 and comes in four colors, with trained behaviors pre-installed and a software stack available. In just four days, the preorder volume exceeded 10,000 units, with sales reaching $4.54 million. The first batch is expected to be delivered before Christmas 2026. The price of some domestic components has increased by more than five times, and the second-hand purchase price can reach as high as 5,567 yuan. Developers like Wang Xu and Lai Yifan assembled the replicative version by hand, and due to shortages in supply of RICX RK3566 chips and controllers, the cost was higher than that of the original model. Currently, third-party projects have been launched on GitHub, and some users are waiting or looking for alternative solutions to complete training and deployment.