Unitree Dex5‑S
Unitree has listed the Dex5‑S dexterous hand at a price from USD 6,350, a five fingered part with 22 powered degrees of freedom that the company presents as a step closer to a true human hand.
The hand is sold on its own rather than attached to an arm, so the buyer brings the rest of the machine. All 22 joints are powered, which means the hand can shape itself around an object instead of only clamping it from two sides. The little finger adds a rolling motion that Unitree treats as new for this model.
The motors are backdrivable, and that is the detail worth slowing down for. A backdrivable joint yields when an outside force pushes against it, so a finger can be moved by hand rather than staying locked in place. And that matters wherever a robot shares space with people, because a joint that gives way is easier to work around than one that holds rigid.
Unitree says every joint has protection against a hard impact, and it describes a structure that shields the gears when a joint takes an extreme blow from outside. The company states that the protection covers all 22 degrees of freedom. It does not publish the impact conditions behind that claim on the product page.
The hand weighs 620 g, and Unitree rates it to carry 1 kg continuously. The rated working load is therefore heavier than the hand itself, a useful ratio for anyone bolting a small hand onto a lighter arm. Both figures appear on the English product page.
Footage of the hand comes from Unitree's own launch film and from the animation clips on its product page, and all of it carries the Unitree credit. But that material shows the hand working through its range of motion rather than its endurance. So what the hand can do is on screen, while how it holds up through everyday work is not.
Price is where a buyer will pause. The English product page lists the Dex5‑S from USD 6,350, and no Singapore dollar price is published. Unitree has not issued a converted figure for other markets, so teams outside the United States will price the hand themselves against local import costs.
A dexterous hand is a component sale rather than a finished machine. The buyer supplies the arm, the power and the control software, and Unitree sells the hand as a part with its own specification sheet. That is why the numbers on that sheet carry more weight here than a demonstration clip does.
And the trade off against a simpler gripper is real. Twenty two driven joints give the hand a range of grips that a two finger gripper cannot reach, and they add cost, weight and control work in return. Whether that trade suits a particular task is a question the product page does not answer.
Unitree has kept the hand at roughly human scale, which is the harder engineering problem. Room for motors, wiring and sensing runs out quickly inside a palm sized object, and every added joint competes for that space. Twenty two joints inside that envelope is the claim the rest of the specification has to live with.
For now the Dex5‑S is a specification sheet with a demonstration film behind it. Range of motion is shown, impact protection is asserted, and continuous load is rated rather than proven. The next useful test is whether buyers publish what the hand survives on a real work line.
Unitree lists the Dex5‑S at a price from USD 6,350 on its English product page.
The hand carries 22 powered degrees of freedom across five fingers, including a rolling motion in the little finger.
Backdrivable motors let an outside force move the joints instead of leaving them rigid.
It weighs 620 g and Unitree rates it to carry 1 kg continuously.
The launch film shows range of motion, and Unitree publishes no test conditions for its impact protection claim.
Source: Unitree
