Tension is all you need

Why a cable robot? You don't need a humanoid to pick up things on the floor. Four motors and high strength lines are all it takes move a gripper around the room, even if you can't even see the floor under all the junk. In robotics, price is basically actuator count, and we belive that the fastest way to solving real home chores is to keep it low and keep it affordable.

Status: Stringman is launched. Because of a multi-month lead time on Raspberry Pi Zero 2Ws, the next batch is available to pre-order and is expected to ship around October 2026.

LeRobot Integration

We've built our grasping capabilities on top of the LeRobot platform, which allows us to train Stringman to immitate grasping examples from teleoperation. Several foundation models have been fine tuned to run Stringman including Pi.05 and JEPA. Our best results though have been from the relatively small Multitask DiT model architecture. We provide a detailed guide inviting you to try training it to grasp objects from your own examples. Robotic Immitation Learning is not as hard as it looks.

Unmatched Reach

Unlike desktop arms limited to a fixed radius, Stringman leverages a cable-driven architecture to access the full volume of a room. The work area volume per dollar of this type of robot is completely unmatched, all with fewer actuators than even the simplest mobile robots. Anchors and eylets are mounted in the corners of the room near the ceiling and define a four-sided work area within which any object can be moved from point to point.

Set Your Drop Bins

Organizing your home is a physical process, not a coding task. Use our clip-on fiducial tags to designate your laundry bin, toy box, and trash can. Stringman maps these locations visually. You don't need to tag individual pieces of clutter—just the destination. If there's something you never want it to pick up, you can mark that item as off-limits.

Networks trained to control stringman have learned that the word "toybox" refers to that tag, so you can use it to mark anything even if it doesn't look like the toyboxes from our training set.

You can also use the tags as arbitrary source and destination markers for ferry jobs, such as carrying items from one robot arm to another. or carrying laundry from the ground to a robotic folding station

Local Privacy

Robotics shouldn't come at the cost of domestic privacy. Stringman supports a fully on-premise operating mode where all video processing and telemetry remain within your local network. You get the full suite of automation and computer vision functionality without streaming your home's interior to the cloud.

Remote Management

For those who prefer to make the trade-off by binding their robot to an account, our web-based console allows you to monitor and control Stringman from anywhere. Think of it as a security camera that can actually interact with its environment—log in from work to move an object or check a status from your phone.

Open Source

Stringman is proudly based on a stack of open source tools and is Apache 2.0 licensed and OSHWA certified. From the mechanical CAD to the firmware running on the Raspberry Pi nodes, the entire stack is available for audit, modification, and community contribution. Build something useful, and pay it forward.

Start at the build guides to get an idea of whether you'd like to print and build one yourself

No Charging Downtime

Mobile robots spend a significant portion of their time charging. Because Stringman is a powered from the wall, it's always ready for work. Furthermore, by removing the heavy battery pack, we've increased the payload capacity per dollar compared to mobile platforms that must waste energy carrying their own power supply.

Household Aesthetics

We designed Stringman to work in a home, not a lab. The corner anchors are styled to mimic crown moulding, and the braided lines are nearly invisible at a distance of just a few meters. It’s an appliance that blends in when not in use.

If you are curious how it would look in your house, you can print and assemble the frame without any motors or electronics, and install it just for looks

Swing Cancellation

Stringman's gripper is 50cm below the pivot point so it can reach the floor next to beds and tables. This additional linkage could allow unconstrained motion so Stringman employs active swing cancellation algorithms to counteract momentum, without adding the cost of any additional motors. This ensures the gripper remains steady and predictable even during rapid cross-room traversals.

There's a whole video about swing cancellation if you're curious about how it works!

Wrist and Fingers

Often, a simple solution that gets the job done has more value than a complex one. Stringman uses a two fingered gripper with a wrist. This is enough dexterity for the clutter it is designed to pick up, keeping weight and cost low and reliability high. In our household tests we have determined that more layers of grip tape is simply a better return on investment than more articulated fingers.

Customize Your Look

The hardware is as modular as the software. The Stringman faceplate is easily swappable and 3D printable. Change colors to match your decor, or use our templates to design something entirely custom. If you want your robot to look like a pineapple, the files are there for you to do it.