Figure founder calls tendon hand his biggest mistake; dexterous hand shipments stay tiny
CyberRobooo · x · 2026-08-14
Figure's founder admits the tendon hand was a mistake. Brett Adcock writes that he chose a tendon-driven design for the F.01 robot in 2022 — more actuator packaging space, higher degrees of freedom, biologically inspired. Built and tested by early 2023, it was "an engineering work of art," yet in hindsight it was maybe his worst engineering decision in four years: tendons are a complete local maximum.
Robotics account CyberRobooo adds industry context:
- No hand has publicly claimed mass feasibility testing in complex real-world environments (not lab or research settings)
- Global dexterous hand shipments are only in the tens of thousands; humanoid shipments remain below 100K
- Beijing Inspire shipped 10,000+ units last year (used by Apptronik's Apollo), targeting 30K–50K this year
- Linkerbot shipped 10,000 units last year with monthly production of 4,000+
- The popular Wuji hand (back-drivable rotary direct-drive joint) is used by star startups like Genesis and Dyna
Takeaway: dexterous hands are still extremely early, and the tendon vs. direct-drive debate is far from settled.
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