BrainCo
BrainCo is the Hangzhou neurotechnology company whose Revo dexterous hands grew out of its Time magazine listed prosthetic limbs: the Revo 2, a 383 gramme, 11 degree of freedom bionic hand lifting 20 kilogrammes at 0.1 millimetre precision in Basic, Pro and Touch versions, and the Revo 3, a 21 degree of freedom, fully direct drive hand with full palm tactile sensing at 0.01 newton resolution and visuotactile fingertips, in Basic, Touch and Vision variants with EtherCAT, CAN FD and ROS 2 support.
BrainCo
Most dexterous hand makers learnt hands from robotics; BrainCo learnt them from people. The Hangzhou neurotechnology company, one of the firms grouped among China's celebrated "Six Little Dragons," with operations reaching to the Boston area, spent years fitting amputees with its intelligent prosthetic hand, an invention Time magazine named among the 100 best of 2019, and that clinical apprenticeship forced its engineers through the full depth of hand mechanics, tendon routing, force transmission and tactile feedback, long before the humanoid boom made such expertise commercially precious. When the company transferred the technology to robotics, launching its first robot dexterous hand in March 2024, a tactile version five months later, and the Revo 2 series that was gripping for dozens of leading Chinese robotics companies by April 2025, it arrived not as a newcomer but as a specialist changing patients.
The current range spans the discipline's two frontiers. The Revo 2 is the fielded workhorse: a phone sized, 383 gramme bionic hand with 11 degrees of freedom that lifts 20 kilogrammes, an extraordinary grip to weight ratio, in Basic, Pro and Touch versions, the five finger option chosen by major humanoid platforms. The Revo 3, launched in April 2026, is the perception flagship: 21 degrees of freedom on fully direct drive, backdrivable joints, wrapped in a dual layer sensing system, full palm tactile resolution of 0.01 newtons plus visuotactile fingertips detecting deformations around 130 micrometres, presented as the world's first open ecosystem hand to combine more than 20 degrees of freedom with that sensory depth.
Within the wider robot hands and accessories categories, the full BrainCo range for sale can be explored through this page.
Background
From clinic to catalogue
BrainCo's route into robotics is the sector's most unusual and its most instructive. Prosthetics is dexterous manipulation with the harshest customer in the world: a human wearer who needs the hand to work all day, every day, on real objects, with real feedback. The engineering habits that discipline built, mass kept honest, force made controllable, touch treated as essential rather than optional, transferred directly when embodied AI created demand for robot hands, and they explain the Revo range's signature: unusually light hardware with unusually strong grip and unusually serious sensing.
An ecosystem, deliberately open
The company ships its hands as a platform: C++ and Python SDKs, ROS 2 drivers, robot description assets and simulation resources spanning all three Revo generations, with the Revo 3 adding sim2real integration and one click deployment. Hands are components, and BrainCo engineers them to be integrated, multi bus communication, wide voltage tolerance, left and right units, onto whichever humanoid, arm or research rig the buyer already runs.
The BrainCo Lineup
Revo 1: The Founding Generation
The Revo 1 is where the prosthetic lineage crossed into robotics: the company's first robot dexterous hand from March 2024, joined within months by its tactile enabled sibling, establishing the five finger architecture, the control stack and the SDK support that still carries it in the documentation today, with configurations for remaining stock confirmed at quotation.
Revo 2: The Fielded Workhorse
The Revo 2 is the hand the industry actually fitted. Six motors drive six active joints within 11 total degrees of freedom, two active on the thumb plus passive flexion, active flexion with passive follow through on each finger, in a package of 383 grammes and 160 by 76 millimetres that still grips at 50 newtons, lifts 20 kilogrammes, and places to 0.1 millimetres, a grip to weight ratio of 52.6 that few competitors approach. The Basic version carries the core; the Pro and Touch add EtherCAT at kilohertz rates beside RS485 and CAN FD, with the Touch layering multimodal tactile sensing at the fingertips; and features like Turbo mode, a periodic active re-grip for guaranteed hold, closed loop servo control, custom gesture definition and current, stall, temperature and collision protections mark hardware matured in the field, where it equips education and research tiers of major humanoid platforms.
Revo 3: The Hand That Feels
The Revo 3 rebuilds the concept around perception and compliance. Twenty one degrees of freedom, four per finger and five on the thumb, run on fully direct drive, backdrivable joints, so every joint can be position controlled, force controlled through MIT force position and admittance modes, or left transparent in zero torque, at 500 hertz over EtherCAT, CAN FD or RS-485. Its sensing is the headline: a full palm tactile array resolving 0.01 newtons across pressure distribution, friction, force direction and proximity, paired with visuotactile fingertips detecting deformations near 130 micrometres, the combination that turns grasping into genuine in-hand manipulation. Mechanically it grasps above 70 newtons, pinches above 20, carries 20 kilogrammes overall and 5 on four fingers, repeats to 0.1 degrees, cycles at 3 hertz, spans 33 grasp types, exceeds human range on Kapandji testing and opposes every finger to the palm, across objects from 10 to 150 millimetres, in Basic, Touch and Vision variants, with the visuotactile V-Touch build at the summit.
Range Overview
| Attribute | Revo 2 | Revo 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Degrees of freedom | 11 (6 active joints) | 21, full direct drive, backdrivable |
| Weight / size | 383 g, 160 × 76 mm | 215 × 105 × 50 mm class |
| Grip / payload | 50 N grip, 20 kg payload | >70 N grasp, >20 N pinch, 20 kg payload |
| Precision | 0.1 mm | 0.1° repeatability, 3 Hz cycles |
| Sensing | Multimodal tactile (Touch) | Full palm tactile 0.01 N + visuotactile fingertips |
| Communication | RS485, CAN FD, EtherCAT to 1 kHz | EtherCAT, CAN FD, RS-485 at 500 Hz |
| Versions | Basic, Pro, Touch | Basic, Touch, Vision |
Figures follow published specifications; versions and fitment are confirmed at quotation.
Which buyers does BrainCo suit?
BrainCo sells to everyone whose robot needs better hands than it shipped with. Humanoid owners and integrators fit Revo 2 or Revo 3 units to research and education platforms, where the Revo 2 already serves as the five finger option on leading machines across the humanoid catalogue. Manipulation researchers take the Revo 3's backdrivable transparency and dual layer touch for grasp learning, tactile policy and in-hand manipulation studies across research robotics. Education programmes take the Revo 2's robustness and SDK depth across educational robotics, embodied AI teams take the Revo 3's sim2real pipeline for data driven manipulation, and industrial developers take force controlled grasping toward assembly and inspection applications, with sensing hardware from the wider sensors catalogue completing rigs.
Technology
Direct drive, and why it matters
The Revo 3's fully direct drive, backdrivable architecture is the mechanical foundation of everything above it: no reduction stack between motor and joint means forces flow both ways, the hand can feel through its motors, comply on contact, and switch between position, force position, admittance and zero torque behaviour at 500 hertz, the control repertoire in-hand manipulation actually requires, rather than the grip and hope of conventional geared hands.
Two layers of touch
BrainCo's sensing thesis is that palms matter as much as fingertips: the Revo 3's full palm array resolves 0.01 newton contacts across the whole grasping surface, reading pressure maps, friction and force direction, while the visuotactile fingertips image their own deformation to around 130 micrometres, together giving control software the contact picture that stabilises objects moving within the hand, not merely held by it.
Strength per gramme
The prosthetic inheritance shows plainest in the ratios: the Revo 2's 20 kilogramme payload from 383 grammes of hand, a grip to weight ratio of 52.6, engineered because human wearers cannot carry heavy hardware, and prized now because humanoid arms cannot either, distal mass being the tax every gramme of end effector levies on a robot's whole balance.
One SDK family, three generations
Integration is continuous across the range: C++ and Python SDKs, ROS 2 drivers, description assets and simulation resources documented from Revo 1 through Revo 3, multi bus hardware from 9 to 80 volts across the family, and the Revo 3's one click deployment closing the sim2real loop, so a laboratory's investment in BrainCo tooling survives every hardware upgrade.
What are BrainCo hands used for?
- Humanoid platform upgrades: five finger dexterity fitted to research and education humanoids across the humanoid catalogue.
- Manipulation research: grasp learning, tactile policies and in-hand manipulation on backdrivable, sensing rich hardware across research robotics.
- Embodied AI development: tactile and visuotactile data for manipulation models, with sim2real deployment on the Revo 3.
- Education: hand mechanics, control modes and SDK programming across educational robotics.
- Industrial application development: force controlled grasping toward assembly, tool handling and inspection tasks.
- Teleoperation and demonstration rigs: human paced grasping across 33 grasp types for data collection and display.
Pricing and Availability
BrainCo dexterous hands are available for purchase across Europe and worldwide, as single left or right units, pairs and laboratory sets across the Revo generations, alongside the wider robot hands catalogue on Robots Europa. BrainCo price and cost vary by generation, version and sensing configuration, so buyers seeking Revo hands for sale should request a current quotation for their requirements, with European delivery, customs clearance and support arranged through Robots Europa. Purchasing enquiries, specification sheets and availability details for those looking to buy BrainCo hands can be found on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is BrainCo?
BrainCo is a Hangzhou headquartered neurotechnology and robotics company, counted among China's "Six Little Dragons," whose Time magazine listed prosthetic hand lineage produced the Revo family of robot dexterous hands: the Revo 1, the fielded Revo 2 and the flagship Revo 3.
How do BrainCo Revo hands work?
They drive five finger architectures through closed loop servo control, the Revo 2 with six motors across 11 degrees of freedom and the Revo 3 with 21 fully direct drive, backdrivable degrees, sense contact through tactile and visuotactile layers, communicate over RS485, CAN FD and EtherCAT, and integrate through C++, Python and ROS 2 SDKs with simulation support.
What is the difference between the Revo 2 and Revo 3?
The Revo 2 is the light, proven workhorse, 383 grammes, 11 degrees of freedom, 20 kilogramme payload, in Basic, Pro and Touch versions; the Revo 3 is the perception flagship, 21 backdrivable degrees of freedom, full palm tactile sensing at 0.01 newtons, visuotactile fingertips, four control modes at 500 hertz, in Basic, Touch and Vision variants.
Why is the BrainCo Revo 3 significant?
It is presented as the world's first open ecosystem dexterous hand combining more than 20 degrees of freedom with both full palm tactile and fingertip visuotactile sensing, the sensory and mechanical package that moves robot hands from grasping objects to manipulating them within the hand, with 33 grasp types and Kapandji range beyond the human hand.
What are the benefits of BrainCo hands?
Key benefits include class leading grip to weight ratios born of prosthetic engineering, sensing depth unmatched at their price points, backdrivable compliance and four control modes on the Revo 3, industrial multi bus communication, a single SDK family across generations and field maturity from deployments across dozens of robotics companies.
Which robots can BrainCo hands be fitted to?
The range is built for integration: multi bus interfaces, wide voltage tolerance and published description assets suit humanoids, robot arms and research rigs broadly, and the Revo 2 already serves as a five finger option on major humanoid education platforms, with fitment for specific machines confirmed at quotation.
Where can I buy BrainCo hands and what do they cost?
BrainCo Revo hands are for sale through Robots Europa, serving the United Kingdom, the European Union and markets worldwide with delivery, customs clearance and support. Because cost varies by generation and sensing configuration, buyers should request a tailored quotation. Full purchasing details are available on this page.
Summary
BrainCo is what happens when hand engineering is learnt where failure is not an option and then released into robotics: prosthetic discipline expressed as robot hardware, the Revo 2 lifting fifty times its weight from a phone sized package, the Revo 3 feeling its way through manipulation with a palm that resolves hundredths of a newton and fingertips that watch themselves deform. Around the hardware stands a genuinely open ecosystem, one SDK family, ROS 2, simulation and sim2real deployment, that lets any laboratory or humanoid programme upgrade its hands without rebuilding its stack. As the touch specialist of the dexterous hand market, BrainCo stands as the reference answer for robots that need to do more than hold, and this page as the European starting point for equipping them.
v3, August 9, 2026