Show HN: RoboAPI – A unified REST API for robots, like Stripe but for hardware

11 points

a month ago

Every robot manufacturer ships a different SDK and a different protocol. A Boston Dynamics Spot speaks nothing like a Universal Robots arm. Every team building on top of robots rewrites the same integration layer from scratch. This is a massive tax on the industry.

RoboAPI is a unified API layer that abstracts all of that into one clean developer experience. One SDK, one API key, any robot — simulated or real hardware.

You can connect a simulated robot and read live telemetry in under 5 minutes:

  pip install fastapi uvicorn roslibpy
  uvicorn api.main:app --reload
  curl -X POST localhost:8000/v1/robots/connect -d '{"robot_id":"bot-01","brand":"simulated"}'
  curl localhost:8000/v1/robots/bot-01/sense

It also connects to real ROS2 robots via rosbridge — I tested it today controlling a turtlesim robot drawing circles through the API.

The architecture is pluggable — each robot brand is a separate adapter implementing a common interface (like a payment gateway in Stripe). Adding a new brand means one file.

Currently supports: simulated robots and any ROS2 robot. Boston Dynamics and Universal Robots adapters are next.

Would love feedback from anyone working in robotics — especially on the API design and what's missing for real-world use.

2 comments