Agility Robotics has picked Nyobolt as the ultra-fast-charging battery technology partner for Digit 5, the fifth generation of its warehouse humanoid. The company is targeting about 90 minutes of work per charge and roughly nine minutes to return to full power, a 10-to-1 run-to-charge ratio that compares with 2-to-1 on Digit 4.
Those figures are Agility’s targets rather than field results, but they point at the issue that matters most for humanoids on a work floor: how much of the day a robot spends working versus recharging. The company says the ratio could support more than 20 productive hours in a 24-hour day, provided the robot can return to its charging dock regularly.
Agility unveiled Digit 5 on September 15. The robot stands 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 284 pounds. Its reach has grown from about 5.5 feet to 7.2 feet, yet it is still compact enough to pass through standard doorways. It can repeatedly lift up to 50 pounds, about 40 percent more than Digit 4.
The legs have been redesigned as well. Digit 4’s backward-bending legs give way to human-like knees, so the robot can crouch and kneel to collect cargo without its ankles hitting the floor. Cycloidal actuators drive the joints.
Agility Arc, the company’s software layer, connects Digit with warehouse and production systems and coordinates it with conveyors and autonomous mobile robots for jobs such as palletizing and depalletizing.
Agility says Digit 5 is designed to work without safety cages near people. Cameras, depth sensors and inertial units detect nearby workers, and the robot can change direction, stop, or sit down and shut off its motors so people can approach safely. The company describes Digit 5 as the first humanoid designed to undergo a field evaluation against OSHA industrial safety standards, and it is taking part in efforts to set humanoid safety standards in the United States, Canada and through ISO.
NVIDIA is the first launch partner for the safety stack. Agility is using NVIDIA’s IGX Thor and Halos for Robotics platforms to develop a new safety controller and a certification pathway for the robot.
Battery life has long limited mobile robots. A machine that works for a short period and then needs a long charge forces operators to buy extra units or accept idle time. By shortening the recharge to nine minutes, Agility aims to make a smaller fleet cover a full shift, with robots cycling through the dock between tasks.
Nyobolt is known for fast-charging battery technology, and the partnership gives Agility a specialist for one of the robot’s most demanding components. Early access to the Nyobolt-equipped Digit 5 is planned for the first half of 2027.
Agility plans to build Digit 5 at its RoboFab in Salem, Oregon, a facility with capacity for up to 10,000 robots per year. The company reports more than $300 million in multi-year commitments, which it says depend on contract milestones. Early customer access is planned for the first half of 2027, with wider availability later that year.
Pricing for Digit 5 has not been announced. Details on named customers and deployment sites are still to come, and the runtime and charging figures will be tested in customer facilities as early access begins.
For customers weighing humanoids, runtime claims deserve scrutiny. Agility’s more-than-20-hour figure is the company’s own calculation, and it assumes regular docking between tasks. Real facilities will determine how often a robot can break away for nine minutes without slowing a line, which is why the early-access period matters.
The pairing of charging speed with payload is also deliberate. A robot that lifts 50 pounds and reaches 7.2 feet can handle a wider range of totes and shelf heights, so each docking cycle returns more useful work. Agility is betting that incremental gains in reach, lifting and uptime together matter more to warehouse buyers than any single headline specification.
Humanoid makers are competing on several fronts at once. Boston Dynamics’ electric Atlas is rated for up to 66 pounds and a 7.5-foot reach and runs about four hours on a swappable battery, while Digit 5 takes a different approach with shorter shifts between rapid charges. Each strategy reflects a view of how robots will fit into warehouse routines.
Digit’s earlier generation already worked in logistics settings, and the company’s approach has been to concentrate on tote handling and palletizing, where repeatable tasks let the robot show value without full human-like generality. Digit 5 extends that focus with more reach, more payload and more uptime.
For operators, the combination of safety design, fast charging and software integration is the headline. A robot that can share floor space with people, recharge quickly and plug into existing conveyor and mobile robot systems is easier to adopt than one that requires a redesigned facility. The next test comes in 2027, when early customers begin to put the numbers to work.
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