Sprout Robot: New Humanoid Designed for Safe Human Interaction

Fauna Robotics introduces Sprout, a 3.5-foot humanoid robot built for use in homes, schools, offices, and more.

Published on Feb. 10, 2026

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New York-based robotics startup Fauna Robotics has unveiled Sprout, a new humanoid robot designed to operate safely around people in everyday environments like homes, schools, and offices. Sprout features a soft-touch exterior, lightweight materials, and simple grippers instead of complex hands, prioritizing safety and natural interaction over industrial capabilities.

Why it matters

As robots become more integrated into daily life, designs that prioritize safety and intuitive human interaction, like Sprout, could be key to widespread acceptance and adoption of humanoid robots in public spaces and workplaces.

The details

Sprout is a 3.5-foot-tall, 50-pound humanoid robot built by Fauna Robotics to operate safely around people. The robot's design emphasizes features like a soft exterior, avoidance of sharp edges, and resilient construction that allows it to recover from falls without damage. Instead of complex hands, Sprout uses simple grippers for tasks like object fetching. Fauna Robotics is positioning Sprout as a developer-focused platform, providing tools for creating intuitive human-robot interactions through features like an expressive face, quiet motors, and smooth movements.

  • Fauna Robotics unveiled Sprout in February 2026.

The players

Fauna Robotics

A New York-based robotics startup that has created Sprout, a humanoid robot designed to operate safely around people in everyday environments.

Sprout

A 3.5-foot-tall, 50-pound humanoid robot developed by Fauna Robotics to prioritize safety and natural interaction when operating around people in homes, schools, offices, and other public spaces.

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What’s next

Fauna Robotics plans to add new capabilities to Sprout through software updates, rather than hardware redesigns, in order to continuously expand the robot's functionality and applications.

The takeaway

Sprout's design, which prioritizes safety and natural human interaction, represents a shift in humanoid robotics towards integrating these machines into everyday public spaces and workplaces. As robots become more ubiquitous, this approach could be key to widespread acceptance and adoption.