---
id: "2026-01-27-figure-helix-02"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-01-27-figure-helix-02/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-01-27"
date_precision: day
category: robotics
importance: 4
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 7
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-01-27-figure-helix-02/

# Figure Helix 02: one neural network controls a humanoid's whole body from pixels

On 2026-01-27 Figure released Helix 02, a single visuomotor network that maps Figure 03's cameras, touch and proprioception to every actuator; it unloaded and reloaded a dishwasher across a full kitchen in a 4-minute autonomous run, which Figure calls the longest-horizon, most complex autonomous humanoid task to date.

## Key facts
- Adds System 0: 10M-parameter learned whole-body controller at 1 kHz, trained on 1,000+ hours of retargeted human motion and 200,000+ parallel simulated environments
- System 1 at 200 Hz produces full-body joint targets; System 2 handles semantics and language
- Dishwasher unload/reload: ~4 min end-to-end, walking + manipulation + balance, no resets or human intervention
- First Figure policies using Figure 03 palm cameras and tactile sensing
- 2026-05-13: Figure livestreamed a team of Figure 03 robots sorting barcoded packages on conveyors for a full 8-hour shift, fully autonomous on Helix-02 and swapping in and out of charging stations; Figure claims 'human performance levels' (company claim, not independently measured)
- Figure: 'first demonstration of such long horizon, end-to-end pixels-to-whole body control on a humanoid robot'

## What happened

Figure extended its Helix VLA (Feb 2025, upper body only) to full-body control with a new low-level System 0 controller, running on the Figure 03 robot.
In May 2026 Figure followed with a demo of two robots tidying a bedroom and making a bed autonomously.
On 2026-05-13 Figure livestreamed its robots doing package sorting for a full 8-hour shift with no human intervention, rotating units through charging stations. Figure says they worked at human speed. That is a company claim, and no throughput numbers were independently verified.

## Why it matters

It was the first public case of a learned humanoid policy doing minutes-long household tasks end to end from pixels. That set the bar that Gemini Robotics 2 (July) and Helix 2.5 (September) were measured against.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): in its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): in its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): in its training data
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): in its training data

## Sources

1. [Figure: Introducing Helix 02 - Full-Body Autonomy](https://www.figure.ai/news/helix-02) (figure.ai, official)
2. [Figure on X: full 8-hr shift at human performance levels (2026-05-13)](https://x.com/Figure_robot/status/2054603845393875452) (x.com, official)
3. [Interesting Engineering: Helix 02 upgrades humanoid control](https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/figure-helix02-upgrades-humanoid-robot-control) (interestingengineering.com, press)
4. [eWeek: Figure launches Helix 02](https://www.eweek.com/news/figure-helix-02-humanoid-robot-autonomy/) (eweek.com, press)
5. [Interesting Engineering: Helix-02 robots handle full 8-hour work shifts](https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/figure-helix02-humanoid-robots-8-hour-shifts) (interestingengineering.com, press)
6. [Tech Times: Figure's Helix-02 robots complete full 8-hour autonomous shifts](https://www.techtimes.com/articles/316632/20260514/figure-ais-helix-02-robots-complete-full-8-hour-autonomous-shifts-humanoid-race-intensifies.htm) (techtimes.com, press)
7. [YouTube (Figure): Introducing Helix 02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQsvTrRTBRs) (youtube.com, video)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29: Added the 2026-05-13 8-hour-shift livestream (X post + press)
- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-09-17: [Figure Helix 2.5: humanoids do chores zero-shot in 30 never-seen homes](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-17-figure-helix-2-5/index.md)
- 2026-08-25: [Figure launches Index, a paid crowdsourced human-video pipeline to train humanoids](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-25-figure-index-dataset/index.md)
- Models: [Helix 02](https://postcutoff.com/m/figure-helix-02/) (`figure-helix-02`)
- Archived: 1 post and 2 videos, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-01-27-figure-helix-02/index.json