Agility picks Nyobolt batteries so Digit 5 can work 20 hours a day

Digit 5 runs for 90 minutes on a charge, then recharges in 9 minutes. Agility calls that a 10:1 run-to-charge ratio.

The old Digit 4 managed 2:1. For every hour of work, it spent half an hour on the charger.

Agility says the new pack lets Digit 5 work more than 20 hours in a 24-hour day. That is more than two full shifts.

By the numbers: here's how the two models compare, based on Agility's figures.

The last row is simple math on the ratios. A 2:1 robot spends one hour in three charging. A 10:1 robot spends about one hour in eleven.

For a business, a humanoid robot is a bet on hours of work. Every minute on the charger is a minute nobody is moving boxes.

Agility's chief business officer put it in one line: "For our customers, Digit's uptime is the business case."

Daniel Diez added that more than 20 hours of work a day "materially improves the value customers get from Digit and the economics of deploying a humanoid robot fleet." He called Nyobolt's fast charging "one of the pieces that makes Digit 5 ready for full-scale operation."

Think of it like a delivery van. A van that needs eight hours of charging can only do day shifts. A van that tops up during lunch can run around the clock, and suddenly you need fewer vans.

In real life Picture a warehouse running two shifts. With a 2:1 robot, a manager has to plan for robots that sit out a third of the day, or buy extra robots to cover the gaps. With a 10:1 robot, one machine can cover both shifts with short top-ups in between.

Nyobolt was founded in 2019 and is based in Cambridge, UK. It builds high-power batteries that charge very fast.

According to the company, its approach combines three things:

• Its own anode materials: the anode is one of the two sides of a battery cell, and its material affects how fast the cell can take a charge.
• Its own cell design: how the cell is built inside.
• Integrated power electronics: the circuits that manage power flow, designed together with the battery.

Nyobolt says the result is fast charging, high power density, lower weight and a longer life. It sells into AI data centers, robots and humanoids, and mobility.

The Robot Report notes that Nyobolt reached a $1 billion valuation in May 2026 after raising $60 million, with support from warehouse automation company Symbotic.

Nyobolt's co-founder and CEO, Sai Shivareddy, said Digit 5 "will need more power from a smaller, lighter pack, in environments where reliability isn't optional."

He said Agility "set an exceptionally high bar for what a battery has to withstand in live warehouse and manufacturing environments."

That matters for a robot that walks. Every extra pound in the battery is a pound the robot has to carry around all day, instead of the boxes it was hired to carry.

Agility unveiled Digit 5 in September. The battery is one upgrade among several. Here's what the robot gets, from GeekWire and The Robot Report:

• Heavier lifting: up to 50 pounds, 40% more than Digit 4.
• Higher reach: up to 7.2 feet, up from 5.5 feet.
• New legs: Digit drops its backward, bird-like knees for more human-like legs, built for lifting heavy things and getting up and down off the ground.
• Swappable grippers: the hands can be changed for different jobs.
• Faster charger: a new autonomous charger that the robot uses on its own.
• Safety without fences: Agility says Digit 5 is its first humanoid built to work safely near people at scale. It watches for nearby workers and steers around them, stops or sits down.

Digit 4 mostly moved plastic totes. Agility says Digit 5 will cover more of a facility's work: unloading pallets, tending machines, gathering parts, checking items and loading pallets again for shipping.

Agility co-founder Jonathan Hurst told The Robot Report that the design came from hundreds of engineering requirements gathered from customers, from aisle widths to where chargers can be bolted down.

Agility, founded in 2015 and based in Salem, Oregon, says Digit has logged more than 65,000 hours of real-world work.

GeekWire reports its customers include GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon and Toyota's Canadian manufacturing arm. The photo above shows the earlier Digit at a GXO site.

Agility says it had more than $300 million in multi-year orders for Digit 5 as of May. According to its SEC filing, as reported by GeekWire, those orders come from one customer, for 1,000 robots over three years.

The same filing shows how early the business still is. Agility had $1.78 million in net sales in 2025, up from $310,000 the year before. Amazon, an early investor, bought five Digit robots for $1.05 million.

The robots are built at Agility's RoboFab factory in Salem, which is designed to make up to 10,000 robots a year.

It has plenty of company in the race. Agility's filing names Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Apptronik, Figure AI and 1X Technologies as competitors. We have covered Tesla's push to scale Optimus and Boston Dynamics' new Atlas hand.

Here's the timeline Agility has shared so far:

• First half of 2027: early access to Digit 5 with Nyobolt's battery begins.
• Following six to nine months: availability grows for manufacturing, warehouse and distribution operators.
• End of 2027: general availability, according to GeekWire and The Robot Report.

The Robot Report adds that Digit 5 will also be sold outside North America for the first time, starting with the European Union and the UK.

What's next: Agility is also heading to the stock market. It plans to merge with Churchill Capital Corp XI, a blank check company, in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. The combined company is expected to trade on Nasdaq as "AGLT." The SEC declared the merger's registration statement effective on October 13.

• No robot coworker yet: Digit 5 is not shipping until 2027, and only to businesses.
• Watch the boring numbers: for work robots, charging time and uptime decide who wins as much as walking and grabbing do.
• Faster shipping, maybe: if robots like Digit cover more warehouse hours, packages could move through those buildings around the clock.
• Fast charging spreads: the same kind of battery tech is aimed at data centers and vehicles, not just humanoids.