NAO

What it's for

The NAO is a humanoid 58 cm tall and weighing 5.4 kg, with 25 degrees of freedom (DOF), cameras, microphones, an ultrasonic sensor and a gyroscope. Sold since March 2008, it has reached about 20,000 customers, mainly schools and universities. Its listed applications are schools and universities, and scientific research.

School: the robot is a pretext for learning to program, as students see code turn into movement, gesture and speech. University: research on human-robot interaction and machine learning, where what counts is a repeatable, familiar platform rather than a showy prototype. A Polish trace: the Silesian University of Technology lists the NAO among the equipment in its robotics laboratory. More on education with robots: “Educational Robots for Schools and Universities”, educational robots, schools and universities.

A caveat: the exact technical parameters may differ between generations of the robot; in our overview they have not been re-verified with the manufacturer. Check which version you are getting before you buy. The basics of how humanoids work are explained in the article “How Does a Humanoid Robot Work”.

Who it's for

A good fit: schools and universities that already have a NAO or teaching materials built around this robot; the installed base and the software ecosystem are its greatest value. Research laboratories that want a familiar platform described in many publications.

Not a good choice for: new institutions that want to invest in a platform with a secure future. The manufacturer, Aldebaran, announced insolvency in February 2025, and its assets were taken over by China's Maxvision (the Maxtronics brand). Servicing of the installed base is to be carried out by RobotLAB, but the risk of interruptions in the supply of parts remains. Nor should you buy the NAO for uses that need real payload or work outdoors: it is a 58 cm teaching robot, not a working machine. For younger children and school budgets the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Set is often the more sensible choice.

Deployments

In Poland the NAO has no official distributor, but it has a documented presence in academia: the Silesian University of Technology lists it in its robotics laboratory (the university does not give a number of units). We have not confirmed any other Polish deployments by name.

Worldwide the NAO has about 20,000 units sold, mostly to schools and universities. In the educational category, alongside it operate simpler kits such as the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Set or the Ozobot Evo, and research robots, for example the ROBOTIS OP3.

The ROBOTIS OP3 is an open-source research humanoid from the ROBOTIS ecosystem: better where open code and modifications matter, worse for a teacher who wants ready-made lesson material. The ToddlerBot is an open-source research humanoid you can 3D-print (3.7 kg, 30 DOF), with no commercial price: great for a lab with a printer, not for a classroom.

For learning programming alone, the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Set (withdrawn from sale on 30 June 2026, so check for its successor) or the desktop arm Dobot Magician will do the job far more cheaply. The full-size service relative from the same family, the Pepper, has already been withdrawn. The myCobot 280 shows students well how a collaborative arm works before they move on to real cobots.

The NAO went on sale in March 2008 as a product of the French company Aldebaran Robotics, founded in Paris in 2005. Over the following years the company changed owners: it became part of SoftBank Robotics, and later United Robotics Group. Alongside the NAO, Pepper joined the portfolio, unveiled in 2012, with production halted in 2021.

The turning point came in 2025. In February Aldebaran announced insolvency, and in July China's Maxvision Technology Corp took over the key assets, continuing operations under the Maxtronics brand. RobotLAB has pledged to service the installed base of robots without interruption despite the liquidation.