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NAO V1
Aldebaran Robotics
Not yet assessed
- Height
- 58 cm
- Payload
- —
- Verified autonomy
- not assessed
- Real deployment
- not assessed
- Status
- —
- Price
- —
NAO V1
Aldebaran RoboticsNAO is a small humanoid robot (~58 cm, 5.2 kg, 25 DOF) originally developed by Aldebaran Robotics (France, founded 2005), later owned by SoftBank Robotics Europe, and now acquired by Maxvision Technology Corp. (Shenzhen) following Aldebaran's judicial liquidation in early 2025. Over 20,000 units have been sold across 70+ countries, primarily for education, research, healthcare, and therapy. The robot is programmable and capable of autonomous task execution (speech, navigation, interaction) but has been independently criticized as limited in capability and robustness compared to modern humanoids. A successor entity (NAO Robotics SA) and NAO V7 are reportedly in development.
Availability
Specification
- height
- 58 cm
- weight
- 5.2 kg
- degrees_of_freedom
- 25
- max_walking_speed
- 0.4 m/s (spec sheet); up to 0.805 m/s achieved in research with GA-optimized gait (simulation)
- battery_runtime
- ~1.5 hours
Price
No public price — contact the supplier for a quote.
Good · Bad · Ugly
Evidence-graded claims from the Aldebaran Robotics deep report
NAO has been used in 3,600+ independent research studies, making it the dominant platform in HRI and educational robotics research.
Multiple independent academic and news sources [21][31][32][33][34] corroborate the 3,600+ research studies figure and NAO's widespread use in HRI labs and universities globally; peer-reviewed arxiv papers [20][21][22][23] themselves constitute independent evidence of active research deployment, though the exact count of 3,600+ is a company-originated figure repeated by independents rather than an independently audited number.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →
Approximately 20,000 NAO and 17,000 Pepper units were sold across 70+ countries, totalling ~37,000 robots (vs. the company's own claim of 40,000+).
The ~37,000 figure (20,000 NAO + 17,000 Pepper) is cited consistently across multiple independent news and community sources [2][3][7][34], lending it credibility, but the underlying data originates from company-reported figures repeated by press — no independent audit or third-party sales verification is present in the dossier; the company's own higher claim of 40,000+ [1] is likely a rounded-up marketing figure that may include Plato units.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →Aldebaran's liquidation and Maxvision acquisition will result in continuity of NAO robot development, with NAO V7 in development and a new entity NAO Robotics SA planned with 59 engineers.
Multiple news sources [7][9][11][13] confirm the Maxvision acquisition of core IP (~July 19, 2025) and report plans for NAO Robotics SA and NAO V7, but these are forward-looking announcements from the acquirer with no independent verification of actual engineering progress, funding adequacy, or timeline — RobotLAB's pledge of service continuity [11] is a partner statement, not independent confirmation of product development.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →Aldebaran's financial collapse was caused primarily by URG's underinvestment and unrealistic 2-year profitability targets, not fundamental product failure.
Independent news and community sources [6][10][34] cite employee accounts attributing the collapse to URG's unrealistic targets and withdrawal of RAG-Stiftung funding in August 2024, but the dossier also shows net deficits of €156M accumulated under SoftBank ownership (2019–2022) [12], suggesting structural product/market problems predating URG — the causal attribution to URG alone is not independently verified and is contested by the broader financial record.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →NAO supports ROS2-based autonomous HRI capabilities independently of manufacturer APIs, including GPT-based conversation and advanced sensor fusion.
An independent peer-reviewed arxiv paper [21] specifically documents the Open Access NAO (OAN) ROS2 framework enabling HRI applications independent of manufacturer APIs, and [23] demonstrates text-driven motion generation via reinforcement learning on NAO — these are credible independent research demonstrations, but they represent experimental lab capabilities, not validated production-level autonomous performance; cloud/network dependency for GPT functions is an additional reliability caveat noted in the dossier.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →
Pepper was a commercially viable service robot for retail and banking, with broad customer adoption (e.g., HSBC banks, SoftBank stores Japan).
Independent sources directly contradict commercial viability: only 15% of Pepper customers planned contract renewal as early as 2015 [34], production was halted in 2020–2021 [3][7][18], and the company accumulated net deficits exceeding €156M between 2019–2022 [12][13] — deployment at named retailers is confirmed but sustained commercial success is not, and the robot's limited robustness for commercial use is a consistent independent criticism [30][31][34].
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →NAO's hardware is robust enough for repeated use — its 5 kg weight and low-power motors mean falls cause no damage.
An independent Hacker News community source [30] explicitly states NAO can fall without damage due to its 5 kg mass, but this is directly contradicted by multiple independent sources [31][34] citing frequent hardware failures including ribbon harness tears as a well-known chronic problem, and the dossier notes NAO is described as hard to repair — indicating the robot is not reliably robust in practice.
from Aldebaran Robotics deep report →
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