Robotics · 15 October 2026 · 6 min read
Digit 5 is promised a nine-minute charge. The first robots are not due until 2027
Agility says Nyobolt’s pack will give the next Digit 90 minutes of work and a nine-minute charge, and more than 20 hours in a day. Early access is the first half of 2027. The release itself warns the battery may not hit those numbers in a real building.
Agility Robotics said on 15 October that Nyobolt, a Cambridge battery company, will supply the fast-charge pack for Digit 5. The numbers in the release are specific. The pack is meant to run for 90 minutes and charge in 9, a 10-to-1 ratio of work to charging. Digit 4, Agility says, was 2-to-1. Daniel Diez, chief business officer, said that is how Digit 5 gets to more than 20 hours of productive work in a 24-hour day, which he called more than two full shifts, and that uptime is the business case for a customer.
Sai Shivareddy, Nyobolt’s co-founder and chief executive, said the robot needs more power from a smaller, lighter pack, in warehouses and factories where a failed battery is not optional. Neither company named the chemistry, the weight of the pack, the price, or a customer who has agreed to take this version. The release says early access to a Digit 5 with the Nyobolt pack is expected in the first half of 2027, with more machines over the following six to nine months, for manufacturing, warehouse and distribution work.
A ratio is a target
Twenty hours in a day only works if the 90 minutes and the 9 minutes both survive contact with a real shift: a heavier tote, a colder dock, a charger that is not free when the robot wants it. Agility’s own forward-looking statement lists the risk that Digit 5 or its battery “may not achieve the expected performance, specifications or operating results in commercial environments.” That sentence is the one to keep. The 10-to-1 figure is the design. It is not yet a log from a building.
The robot that has already worked is the previous one. On 1 October Agility said Digit’s predecessors had logged more than 65,000 hours, including at Schaeffler, GXO and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. Those hours are not this pack, and they are not Digit 5. A fast charger matters only after a machine is on a floor often enough to need one. Until a named site records a day of 90-minute runs and 9-minute charges, the partnership is a supplier chosen for a robot that is still on the way.