Pepper
Humanoid robot that reads and responds to emotions
Historical record
Pepper is a wheeled humanoid robot developed by SoftBank Mobile and Aldebaran Robotics to interact with people through conversation, gestures, and a chest-mounted touch display. It is designed for customer-facing roles, perceiving its surroundings and reacting to human emotion using its cameras, microphones, and sensors. SoftBank Robotics positions it for retail, hospitality, banking, education, and healthcare settings.
Released: 2014
- Price
- Historical record
- Height
- 1210 mm Press
- Weight
- 28 kg Press
- Payload
- Not disclosed
- Degrees of freedom
- 20 Press
- Battery
- 12 hours Press
Canonical robot record
Verified facts for Pepper
RoboZaps maintains this record as part of its canonical humanoid robot database. Specs are source-verified where linked; RoboZaps compares options across manufacturers and does not represent a single robot maker.
- Spec sources
- 1 linked
- Verification
- Verified Jul 6, 2026 · every displayed spec is source-checked
- Availability
- Discontinued
- Last verified
- Jul 6, 2026
Best fit
Teams that need to compare Pepper against othersocial robots options with deployment readiness, commercial terms, and support assumptions made explicit.
Not best fit
Buyers who need a guaranteed off-the-shelf deployment before confirming current availability, integrator coverage, site readiness, and post-sale support ownership.
Reviews & analysis from the RoboZaps blog
Editorial analysis lives on the blog; this database record stays focused on verified facts.
Overview
Pepper is a social humanoid robot originally developed jointly by SoftBank Mobile and Aldebaran Robotics and unveiled in Tokyo in 2014. Rather than performing industrial or physical labor, Pepper is built to communicate with people, using cameras, microphones, and an array of sensors to perceive its environment and respond to human emotion and behavior. A touch display mounted on its chest supplements spoken conversation and gestures.
The robot moves on an omnidirectional wheeled base rather than legs, allowing it to navigate flat indoor spaces smoothly while engaging people through articulated arms, hands, and an expressive head. SoftBank Robotics markets Pepper as a customer-facing assistant that can greet visitors, answer questions, make recommendations, and collect feedback.
Pepper is deployed across a range of service settings including retail, banking, hospitality, education, and healthcare, where it is positioned to handle routine interactions and free human staff for higher-value work.
Key Features
- Emotion-aware interaction using cameras, microphones, and sensors to perceive and respond to people
- Multimodal communication through speech, body language, and a chest-mounted touch display
- Omnidirectional wheeled base for smooth navigation across flat indoor environments
- Articulated arms, hands, and head for expressive, human-like gestures
- Designed for customer-facing roles across retail, hospitality, banking, education, and healthcare
Specifications
Connectivity
| Communication | WiFi, Ethernet |
Mechanics
| Degrees of Freedom | 20 |
| Locomotion | Wheeled |
Performance
| Max Speed | 3 km/h |
Power
| Battery Life | 12 hours |
Sensing
| Sensors | 2 RGB cameras, 3D camera, 4 microphones, touch sensors, sonar, laser, gyro, bumpers |
Software
| SDK Support | Yes |
Compare with similar robots
Evidence & changelog
Sources
- SoftBank - tranche-1 verification · SoftBank — cites Weight, Height, Degrees of Freedom, Battery Life, Max Speed, Sensors, Locomotion, Communication, SDK Support
Videos
Deployment Evidence
Pepper Production Status — Internal Assessment
SoftBank Robotics paused Pepper production in 2020/21; Aldebaran entered receivership in June 2025 and was acquired by Maxvision Technology. No new production of Pepper announced as of 2026.
Deployment Readiness
Integration & SDK
- ROS Support
- Supported
- SDK Available
- Supported
- API Docs
- View Docs
- Supported Platforms
- Linux, ROS 1, Python, C++, Java, JavaScript
Support & Service
Regions
—Support details not available
Manufacturer
Creator of Pepper and NAO humanoid robots for retail, education, and healthcare applications.
- Headquarters
- Tokyo, Japan
- Founded
- 2014
- Website
- Official site
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