From X to San Francisco: Devang Adhyaru Brings Humanoid Hub Together

Key Takeaways

Show all

• The Humanoid Hub Conference takes place October 15–16, 2026, at AWS Builder Loft in San Francisco, with talks, panels, and live robot demonstrations.
• Devang Adhyaru says visits to more than 35 robotics startups helped convince him of the value of seeing robots and meeting their builders in person.
• His personal highlights include Dar Sleeper on designing robots for the home, Eric Jang on general-purpose robotics, and demonstrations of robot hands.
• Adhyaru expects early enthusiasts to adopt home humanoids, but believes broad usefulness for an average family is still more than two years away.

After touring more than 35 robotics startups across the US and China, Devang Adhyaru came away convinced that following robots through a screen only gets you so far.

“Seeing a robot in person, touching it, watching it move, has tremendous value that no amount of video captures,” the Humanoid Hub founder told Humanoids Daily in written responses ahead of the Humanoid Hub Conference.

The event takes place October 15–16, 2026, at AWS Builder Loft in San Francisco. For Adhyaru, it is an opportunity to bring his online community into the same room as researchers, entrepreneurs, and the machines they are building.

How a happy hour became a conference

In a recent video call with Humanoids Daily, Adhyaru described becoming interested in humanoid robotics and finding too few places to follow the field in depth. That prompted him to start The Humanoid Hub on X.

His subsequent interviews with founders and experts, alongside those startup visits, reinforced the value of being physically present. Conferences made a similar impression on him: meeting someone face to face, he said, builds a much stronger connection than interacting online.

The conference idea took shape after he met Adam Chan, who runs HackerSquad, at a happy hour they hosted during GTC 2026. Adhyaru credits Ilir Aliu with initiating that gathering. Chan brought experience organizing hacker community events, and the two decided to combine their platforms for a larger event.

“We decided to combine the strengths of our two platforms and go bigger with a conference,” Adhyaru said.

Research, deployment, and robots people can live with

Adhyaru sees the program as bringing together two complementary groups: researchers working on robot capabilities and entrepreneurs trying to deploy them. He points to Dyna Robotics, Skild AI, Physical Intelligence, and Project Prometheus on the research side, and Auki Labs and OpenMind on the deployment side.

The conference website lists eight confirmed speakers:

• Eric Jang, formerly VP of AI at 1X Technologies.
• Ted Xiao, formerly at Google DeepMind and now at Project Prometheus.
• Deepak Pathak, co-founder and CEO of Skild AI.
• Jason Ma, co-founder of Dyna Robotics.
• Jan Liphardt, founder of OpenMind.
• Quan Vuong, co-founder of Physical Intelligence.
• Dar Sleeper, chief designer at 1X and designer of NEO.
• Nils Pihl, founder and CEO of Auki Labs.

Two discussions stand out for Adhyaru personally: Sleeper explaining how he approaches designing robots people will live with, and Jang joining an open discussion about how long truly general-purpose robots will take to arrive.

Why he is watching the hands

According to Adhyaru, Lightberry, Booster Robotics, and Dollhouse Robotics are bringing humanoids to the event. He is particularly interested in two hand companies: Proception, whose ProHand he describes as a 22-degree-of-freedom, tendon-driven hand, and Chestnut Robotics, with its 18-degree-of-freedom Aero Hand.

“Hands are where I think the next big jump happens, so having both in the room is a treat,” he said.

His interest extends to the less visible work that supports robot development. He says the event will also include Almond Robotics with its dual-arm Axol platform and Mantis UMI data grippers, SE3 Labs working on real-world policy evaluation, and BitRobot building an open, distributed robotics research network.

The event will give attendees an opportunity to ask the teams about their capabilities and limitations directly.

Enthusiasm, with a longer timeline for useful home robots

Asked what has most changed his outlook, Adhyaru identified two difficult problems: AI and hands.

For AI, he draws a personal comparison with watching his Tesla's FSD develop over five years. In his view, even with substantial data and computing resources, getting to something useful took longer and required more operational work than optimists anticipated. He expects general-purpose robotics to be harder still.

“We will not have it solved in the next two years,” he said. “We will see early enthusiasts adopting humanoids at home, but it will not reach a stage that is genuinely useful to an average family.”

On hardware, he expects five-finger hands to improve rapidly, but sees a gap between dexterity and durability.

“We are still waiting for one that is genuinely dexterous and also lasts the lifetime of the robot body,” he said. “Right now you get one or the other.”

Attending the conference

The Luma listing schedules talks and panels on Thursday, with a robot demonstration showcase on Friday morning and further discussions afterward. The venue is AWS Builder Loft, on the second floor at 525 Market Street.

Registration options cover either day or both days and require approval. The listing also specifies that attendees must be at least 18 and bring a valid physical government-issued photo ID; it includes a separate AWS venue registration link. Check the event page for the latest program and entry instructions.

For more upcoming conferences, competitions, and trade shows, explore our humanoid robotics events calendar.

For Adhyaru, the simplest measure of success is what people get from spending those two days together.

“Mostly I'm looking forward to getting this community in one room,” he said. “I think people will have fun, and I think they'll leave with something genuinely useful.”