# Why hands are the hardest part of a humanoid > Of 182 humanoids on record, 96 describe their hands and 13 publish a degrees-of-freedom figure for them. The word dexterous appears 21 times and comes with a number once. Published: 2026-09-05 Section: Explainer Author: Geert Jan van Vlastuin, Editor, humanoid.observer Canonical: https://humanoid.observer/blog/why-hands-are-the-hardest-part/ Licence: editorial text all rights reserved. The underlying data is CC BY 4.0 at https://humanoid.observer/data/. Cite as: humanoid.observer, https://humanoid.observer/blog/why-hands-are-the-hardest-part/, accessed . --- Our database holds 182 humanoid robots. 96 of them say anything about the hands. 13 give a degrees-of-freedom figure for the hand. 21 records use the word "dexterous", and 20 of those never say how many joints that means. Makers describe the hand least and charge for it most, and both facts come from the same problem. ## Why a hand is harder than a leg A leg has a handful of joints, each with room for a large motor. A hand packs far more joints into a volume the size of a hand, and every joint needs its own actuator, position sensing and wiring. The motor that can hold a drill is too big for a finger. The motor that fits in a finger cannot hold the drill. There are three ways out. Put small motors in the fingers or palm and accept a low joint count. Or move the motors into the forearm and pull the fingers with tendons: [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/) from [1X](/companies/1x/) is tendon driven, and so was the 11-DOF hand on [Tesla](/companies/tesla/)'s [Optimus Gen 1](/robots/tesla-optimus-gen-1/). Tesla's announced [Optimus V3](/robots/tesla-optimus-v3/) hand claims 22 DOF with forearm-mounted actuators; it is a prototype with no autonomy evidence in our record. Or use fluid: [Phoenix](/robots/sanctuary-phoenix/) from [Sanctuary AI](/companies/sanctuary-ai/) pairs an electric body with miniature hydraulic hands of about 20 DOF and tactile sensing. Its pilots used teleoperation. The joint count shows how much of the machine the hands are. The [Unitree G1](/robots/unitree-g1/) has 23 DOF as a body and up to 43 with hands fitted, so the hands add almost as many joints as the rest of the robot. [Xpeng Iron](/robots/xpeng-iron/) lists 82 DOF in total with 22 per hand: more than half of its joints are in its hands. Every one is an actuator, a sensor and a thing that can break. ## Hand DOF has barely moved since 2011 Where a hand DOF figure is published, it runs from 5 (the hobbyist [InMoov](/robots/inmoov/), 3D printed with tendons) to 22 ([Xpeng Iron](/robots/xpeng-iron/) and the announced Optimus V3), with a median of 12 across the 13 records. [Figure 02](/robots/figure-02/) and [Figure 03](/robots/figure-03/) sit at 16. [Optimus Gen 2](/robots/tesla-optimus-gen-2/) has 11. [Kepler K1](/robots/kepler-k1/) and [Fourier GR-2](/robots/fourier-gr-2/) have 12. [Honda](/companies/honda/)'s [ASIMO](/robots/asimo/) had 13-DOF multi-fingered hands in its 2011 version, above today's median. NASA's [Robonaut 2](/robots/nasa-robonaut-2/) launched to the ISS on 24 February 2011 with 12 DOF per hand, operated by crew and ground controllers. The joint count has not moved much in fifteen years. The software people hope to run on it has. Only one machine you can order has a hand DOF figure in our data: the G1's optional Dex3-1 three-finger hand, at 7 DOF. ## The robots that have worked mostly have grippers We sorted the hands text on all 96 records. | Hand type as described | Machines | Examples | |---|---|---| | Five-finger or multi-finger, fitted as standard | 43 | Figure 03, Optimus Gen 2, NEO, Walker S2 | | Optional, or gripper-or-hand variants | 18 | Unitree G1, H1, H2 and R1, Fourier GR-1, AgiBot A2 | | No hands | 13 | MIT Humanoid, Berkeley Humanoid, Robotis OP3 | | Gripper or two-finger | 11 | Digit, HRP-5P, Weave Isaac 1, RB-Y1 | | Simple or unspecified hands | 9 | Honda P2, HRP-4, Sophia | | Three-finger | 2 | DRC-HUBO, HRP-3 | | Nothing said about the hands | 86 | | The gripper row holds the most convincing work. [Digit](/robots/agility-digit-v4/) from [Agility Robotics](/companies/agility-robotics/) uses two-finger end effectors built for totes and has moved them for GXO at a Spanx facility since 2024, autonomously with remote monitoring, which our record marks as partial teleoperation. AIST's [HRP-5P](/robots/hrp-5p/) has two-finger hands and screwed a gypsum board to a wall by itself in a 2018 video, with no teleoperation. [Weave Isaac 1](/robots/weave-isaac-1/) folds laundry with grippers for $7,999, and Weave says remote operators step in when it cannot finish. In the five-finger row of 43, 8 say teleoperation yes, 19 partial, 12 unknown and 4 no. The 4 are [Figure 02](/robots/figure-02/), [Figure 03](/robots/figure-03/), Sony's [QRIO](/robots/sony-qrio/) and [WABOT-2](/robots/wabot-2/). The most human-looking hands are, so far, the ones most often moved by a human somewhere else. ## Hands are the line item In our price data, hands turn the cheap configuration into the expensive one. The [Unitree G1](/robots/unitree-g1/) is $13,500 as standard and $43,900 as the EDU with dexterous hands, Jetson Orin compute and the open SDK; [Unitree](/companies/unitree/) does not price the hands on their own. The [Unitree R1](/robots/unitree-r1/) AIR is $4,900; the R1 standard, which "adds manipulation", is $5,900. The [Booster T1](/robots/booster-t1/) from [Booster Robotics](/companies/booster-robotics/) is $29,800 basic and $50,925 as the "Standard with grippers" through distributors: $21,125 more for grippers, not fingers. Of the 44 humanoids you can order, 4 ship five-finger hands as standard: [Dobot Atom](/robots/dobot-atom/) at $27,500 on preorder, [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/) at $20,000 with its Expert Mode teleoperation, and [Leju Kuavo](/robots/leju-kuavo/) and [Qinglong](/robots/qinglong/) with no public price. 11 list hands as an option or a variant. 26 say nothing about the hands in their record. ## What to check before you pay for "dexterous" Ask for the DOF per hand and how many of those joints have their own motor; 20 of the 21 records that say "dexterous" do not give the number. Ask where the motors are, in the fingers, in the forearm on tendons, or hydraulic, because that decides weight and what breaks first. Ask about touch: 9 of 96 hands descriptions mention tactile sensing, and [Figure 03](/robots/figure-03/) is the only one that puts a figure on it, fingertips sensitive to about 3 grams plus palm cameras. Ask whether the hand is in the quoted price or in the next configuration up. And ask what the hand has done with nobody on a controller. If your task is totes or boards, the machines that have actually done it had two fingers. ## Sources - [Unitree G1 in the Unitree store](https://shop.unitree.com/products/unitree-g1), Unitree - [Introducing Figure 03](https://www.figure.ai/news/introducing-figure-03), Figure AI - [Tesla AI and Robotics](https://www.tesla.com/AI), Tesla - [Sanctuary AI](https://www.sanctuary.ai/), Sanctuary AI - [NEO](https://www.1x.tech/neo), 1X - [Agility Robotics](https://www.agilityrobotics.com/), Agility Robotics - [AIST HRP-5P press release](https://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/list/latest_research/2018/20181116/en20181116.html), AIST - [Booster T1 humanoid robot](https://www.generationrobots.com/en/404278-booster-t1-humanoid-robot.html), Generation Robots - [InMoov](https://inmoov.fr/), InMoov