Launching Humanoid Guide’s Hand Tracker: the plug‑in hands era begins

Today, we’re launching the Hand Tracker – a living index of “plug‑in” humanoid hands with specs, availability, videos and vendor links. It helps teams pick the right end‑effector fast and compare DOF, actuation, weight, sensing and quick‑change wrists in one place. 

Why now? Manipulation and dexterity is the gate to real work. Our 2026 Humanoid Robot Market Report calls dexterous hands (and safety) the two hardest gates; closing them unlocks logistics, light manufacturing and in‑home tasks. 

A human hand offers roughly 25 degrees of freedom (27 with our wrist). In labs there are rumours of 22 DOF for humanoid hands, where Tesla and Musk´s ambitions are the most notable. On a commercial launch level the race has converged around 20 DOF. Two notable entrants, Wuji (20 DOF) and Dexcel’s Apex (21 DOF) set today’s state of the art for commercial‑grade designs we’re tracking.

A new wave of in-hand actuators:

The market has developed from where designers had to design around existing actuators to rather developing new actuators that are custom built for hands and fingers. This new wave places custom motors and tendons back inside the palm and fingers to hit human‑like form factor and dexterity, rather than stuffing everything up the forearm. Community‑shared Tesla Optimus prototypes have shown forearm‑driven layouts; the broader trend is moving power back into the hand, shown by the Apex and Wuji products.

What you’ll find in the tracker: side‑by‑side hands, filters for DOF/torque/tactile skin, readiness tags (prototype → sampling → production), and standardized descriptors so integrators can compare like‑for‑like. We’ll keep adding coupler details and controller interfaces as vendors open up. It will be like our humanoid-tracker, just for hands.

In our interview with Rob Knight, we explore how open hardware, modular wrists, tactile sensing and teleop‑captured data are converging; the tracker reflects those priorities. We welcome vendor submissions, lab prototypes, and early‑access programs and demos for inclusion. If you build hands (or buy them), explore the Hand Tracker, send corrections and submit your models. The faster we converge on interoperable, robust hands, the faster humanoids become useful. More info to be found in the Humanoid Guide Market Report 2026.