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Muted demo loop from the projectCredit: Hugging Face — SmolVLA blog

Run SmolVLA on an SO-101 so it follows plain-English tasks

Arm, Hard, $230

Fine-tune Hugging Face's small vision-language-action model SmolVLA on your own SO-101 demos so the arm acts on instructions like 'put the red block in the box'.

Cost $230: SO-ARM100 README BOM, pair.

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SmolVLA ships inside LeRobot as a compact VLA policy built for community hardware. You record a LeRobot dataset with task strings, fine-tune the pretrained SmolVLA base, and deploy it on the same arm. It's the cheapest way to get language-conditioned manipulation at home.

Hardware & cost: An SO-101 leader/follower pair (~$230 BOM), 1-2 cameras, and a GPU for fine-tuning (a consumer card or a rented one).

Difficulty: Hard. Data quality matters more than code; plan for 50+ clean episodes.

Agent install prompt (paste into Claude Code, Cursor or Codex): "Set up https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot with `pip install -e ".[smolvla]"`, then help me record a dataset with a task description on my SO-101 and fine-tune the SmolVLA base policy on it, following the LeRobot SmolVLA docs."

Source: LeRobot SmolVLA (huggingface/lerobot) — https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot (facts checked against the project README, Oct 2026; prices vary by region).

Quick answers

How much does it cost to run SmolVLA on an SO-101 so it follows plain-English tasks?
About $230, per the SO-ARM100 README BOM, pair.
What do you need to run SmolVLA on an SO-101 so it follows plain-English tasks?
An SO-101 leader/follower pair (~$230 BOM), 1-2 cameras, and a GPU for fine-tuning (a consumer card or a rented one).
How hard is it to run SmolVLA on an SO-101 so it follows plain-English tasks?
Hard. Data quality matters more than code; plan for 50+ clean episodes.

Buying the parts new, one SO-101 follower arm came to $131.69 at Oct 30 retail prices. See the SO-101 parts list and cost.

How your agent drives it

Copied from the huggingface/lerobot README

  1. Shell
    $ pip install lerobot
  2. Shell
    $ lerobot-record \
  --robot.type=<robot_name> \
  --teleop.type=<teleoperator_name> \
  --dataset.repo_id=${HF_USER}/my-dataset

Any coding agent that can run a shell can run these. Read the README before you run anything on a robot that moves.

Parts list

Some buy links may earn Robot Use Cases a commission. You pay the same price. Prices are what the builder listed in their source, so check the store.

SO-101: leader + follower pair (for teleop and LeRobot training)

Builder's listed total $229.88

Also needed: 3D-printed parts for both arms in PLA+ (or a printed kit below). The leader's six servos are also sold as one bundle.

Or buy a kit

Kits listed in the SO-ARM100 README. Prices change by option, so check the vendor page.

From TheRobotStudio/SO-ARM100 README, Parts For Two Arms, checked 2026-10-17.

Ideas to try with it

Our ideas, not the builder's claims.

  1. Say 'put the red block in the box' and watch it try
  2. Fine-tune on your own desk objects so it learns your stapler and mug
  3. Wire it to a voice assistant so spoken requests become arm tasks
1 more idea
  1. Compare SmolVLA against an ACT policy on the same 50 demos
Source
LeRobot SmolVLA (huggingface/lerobot)
Last commit
2026-11-03
Builder
huggingface
Repo
huggingface/lerobot, 28,662 stars
Built with
SO-100/SO-101 arm (LeRobot)

SO-101 / LeRobot, 4 builds: Build the $100-class SO-101 open-source robot arm · Run SmolVLA on an SO-101 so it follows plain-English tasks · Teach an SO-101 arm to pick and place with LeRobot · Livestream and remote-control your SO-101 arm from a web app

What to build next

Builds that share a board, robot or agent with this one.