Jan. 24, 2026, 12:40 p.m. ET
At CES 2026, humanoid robotics company ROBOTERA is drawing attention not just for full-sized humanoid platforms, but for something arguably more fundamental: the robotic hand.
While much of the robotics conversation at CES centers on mobility and artificial intelligence, ROBOTERA’s showcase highlights a quieter but essential challenge in humanoid development—how machines physically interact with the world. The company’s XHAND 1 and XHAND 1 Lite dexterous hands are designed to replicate the size, motion range, and tactile awareness of a human hand, addressing a bottleneck that has long limited real-world robot usefulness.
Unlike traditional industrial grippers, which are optimized for repetitive, single-purpose tasks, ROBOTERA’s hands are anthropomorphic, five-fingered systems built for varied, unstructured environments. The flagship XHAND 1 features 12 active degrees of freedom, with articulated fingers and a fully backdrivable, direct-drive design. According to the company, this design allows the hand to absorb external forces in a controlled manner, which it says supports safer operation during close human interaction.One of the most notable aspects on display at CES is the hand’s tactile sensing. The company says the system incorporates high-resolution, wraparound sensors designed to detect force, contact direction, object edges, and surface characteristics. In practical terms, it reports that this enables the robot to adjust its grip dynamically in response to changing conditions—whether handling fragile items, manipulating tools, or learning new tasks through reinforcement learning.
The XHAND 1 Lite, also shown at CES, takes a more streamlined approach. Designed for research labs, education, and large-scale deployment, it maintains a human-hand footprint while reducing complexity and cost. With fewer active degrees of freedom, the Lite model still supports thumb-to-finger opposition and rapid motion, making it suitable for AI training pipelines where scalability and durability matter.
ROBOTERA sets out modular positioning for these hands instead of presenting them as mere novelties. Both models were indeed designed to fit into the broader humanoid ecosystem from the company, including wheeled and bipedal platforms that were exhibited at the show. This modularity reflects an increasingly industry trend in flexible robot architecture, where components like hands, arms, or even mobility bases can be switched around for other applications without the need for redesigning an entire system.
The focus on dexterity also aligns with broader shifts in robotics research. As AI systems become more capable of perception and planning, physical interaction remains a limiting factor. Without hands that can reliably grasp, feel, and manipulate objects, even the most advanced AI struggles to move beyond controlled environments.
At CES 2026, ROBOTERA’s presence underscores a key insight: progress in humanoid robotics depends as much on mechanical intelligence as it does on software. By refining the interface between machines and the physical world, the company is addressing one of the most persistent challenges in bringing robots out of labs and into everyday settings.
