Midea-backed gripper maker Jodell launches Mozart tactile hand and visuo-tactile sensors at CIIF
Jodell Robotics, a Suzhou maker of electric grippers that recently took a strategic investment from Midea Group, said in a press release on Oct 16 that it launched the Mozart five-finger dexterous hand with tactile sensing in every finger, its own visuo-tactile sensors and an embodied-data acquisition kit at the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai.
The company says it ships 50-plus mass-produced products to over 6,000 customers with capacity above 100,000 units a year. Investment terms and product prices were not disclosed.
A Chinese gripper supplier with more than 6,000 customers is moving up from the robot's fingertips to its hand, eyes and data. Jodell Robotics said in a press release on Oct 16 that it launched three products at the China International Industry Fair (CIIF) in Shanghai, which ran from Oct 12 to 16: the Mozart biomimetic five-finger dexterous hand, self-developed visuo-tactile sensors and a data acquisition kit for embodied AI. The launch follows what the company describes as a strategic industrial investment from Midea Group, the appliance and automation conglomerate. Neither the size of Midea's stake nor any price for the new products was disclosed.
What Jodell launched
According to the release, Mozart integrates high-precision tactile sensors in each finger that capture contact force and position in real time, driven by Jodell's own drive and control algorithms. The company targets semiconductor, 3C electronics, lithium-battery and life-science automation, where it says the hand will handle precision assembly, sample processing and picking of irregular parts. Degrees of freedom, payload and grip force were not given.
The sensor line is the more unusual part. Jodell says it is co-developing human-like tactile sensors with Gerald E. Loeb, founder of SynTouch and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, building on the BioTac technology that Shadow Robot adopted. The sensors detect force, vibration and temperature and are designed to resist industrial electromagnetic interference, with mass production being accelerated in Suzhou, the company said. Jodell also says it is building an embodied data platform and 'embodied brain' from real production data, which it markets as a hand, eye, brain and data system.
The installed base behind the pitch
Jodell's case rests on volume it already has. The company says its portfolio covers 17 series and more than 50 mass-produced products with annual capacity above 100,000 units, and that its founding team worked on China's first space robot. Those figures are the company's own and have not been independently confirmed.
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Jodell's bet is that the company already bolting grippers onto 100,000 robots a year is better placed to sell dexterous hands than a humanoid start-up building hands for its own robot.
That logic is visible across our coverage this month. Korean hand maker Tesollo is preparing a listing on the strength of hand orders, Rhoda AI published tactile-only grasping research on Oct 13, and Xspark AI's Spark-0 preprint argued that tactile pretraining at scale lifts dexterous success rates. Jodell's angle is industrial: it sells to production lines first, and Midea, which owns German robot maker KUKA, gives it a route into a large captive manufacturing customer. The counter-argument is that tactile hands remain expensive and fragile on factory floors, and a gripper customer base does not guarantee buyers for a five-finger hand when a two-finger gripper does the job.
What to watch
Whether Jodell publishes Mozart specifications and a price, whether Midea or KUKA names it as a supplier for a humanoid or cell programme, and whether the Loeb sensors reach volume production in Suzhou in 2027.
- China International Industry Fair (CIIF), Shanghai, Oct 12-16, 2026
- Midea Group (strategic industrial investment, terms not disclosed)
- Mozart five-finger dexterous hand with per-finger tactile sensing; visuo-tactile sensors; embodied-data acquisition kit
- Jodell Robotics press release, Oct 16, 2026 (PR Newswire)
- Investment amount, hand DoF and payload, prices
- Gerald E. Loeb, SynTouch founder (BioTac technology)
- 17 series, 50+ mass-produced products, capacity above 100,000 units a year, 6,000+ customers