For decades, Australians have taken their cars to Midas, their tyres to Ultratune, and their phones to the nearest repair kiosk. Now, as humanoid robots begin appearing in warehouses, hospitals, and homes across the country, a Melbourne-based company is making a bold bet: that the infrastructure to service them needs to exist before the masses arrive — not after.
HUMANOID Robot Repairs opened its doors this month as Australia's first and only independent humanoid robot repair and maintenance network, with its national headquarters in Port Melbourne and service centres in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. A sixth location in Canberra is scheduled to open later this year.
"Every major technology category eventually gets its service infrastructure. We're building that for humanoid robots — now, before the market demands it."
The timing is deliberate. While consumer ownership of humanoid robots remains limited in Australia, enterprise adoption has accelerated sharply over the past 18 months. Logistics operators, manufacturers, and aged care providers are among the early adopters trialling platforms like Tesla's Optimus, Figure's Figure 02, and Agility Robotics' Digit in operational settings. The challenge they consistently face isn't the robots themselves — it's what happens when something goes wrong.
A Gap in the Market Nobody Had Filled
Until now, Australian operators with a malfunctioning humanoid robot had limited options: ship the unit back to the overseas manufacturer, engage a general robotics integrator with no specific humanoid expertise, or attempt repairs in-house. None of these are satisfactory for organisations with operational continuity requirements.
"The analogy we keep returning to is the early days of automotive," says a spokesperson for HUMANOID. "When cars first appeared, there was no service industry. People figured it out as they went. Then Repco opened, then Midas, then Ultratune — and suddenly you had a mature, competitive service ecosystem. We're at the very beginning of that same curve for humanoid robots, and we intend to be the network that defines what good looks like."
The business is structured as a manufacturer-independent service network — deliberately so. Where some competitors may emerge as authorised service partners tied to a single OEM, HUMANOID has positioned itself to service all major platforms from a single network. Currently supported platforms include Tesla Optimus, Figure 01 and 02, Boston Dynamics Atlas, Agility Digit, 1X NEO, Apptronik Apollo, and Unitree's H1 and G1 models.
Not Just a Mechanical Workshop
One of the distinctions HUMANOID makes clearly is that humanoid robot servicing is categorically different from conventional robotics maintenance or even general IT support. Modern humanoid platforms are deeply integrated electromechanical systems — and a significant proportion of faults manifest at the intersection of hardware and software in ways that require both disciplines simultaneously.
"A misaligned joint might look mechanical," the spokesperson explains, "but the root cause could be a sensor calibration drift, a firmware update that changed force parameters, or a corrupted motion model. If you approach it purely as a mechanical problem you'll replace parts that don't need replacing. If you approach it purely as a software problem you'll miss the physical wear that triggered the fault in the first place."
To address this, HUMANOID has built its technician training framework around dual competency — requiring every technician to be qualified in both mechanical systems and software diagnostics before they can work unsupervised on customer units. The company has also developed proprietary diagnostic tooling capable of full system assessment across all supported platforms, producing a standardised written report with every assessment.
Protecting Customer Data
One issue the company has been proactive about addressing is data privacy. Humanoid robots operating in homes, aged care facilities, or commercial environments collect and process significant volumes of sensitive data — audio, video, spatial mapping, and interaction logs among them. Handing a robot to a service provider means, in effect, handing over access to that data.
HUMANOID has published a comprehensive data handling policy, developed in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act 1988, that sets out precisely how customer data is managed during the service process. The policy prohibits data retention beyond the service period, restricts access to credentialed technicians only, and offers enterprise clients the option to negotiate custom data handling agreements as part of their service contracts.
"Your robot's data belongs to you. We treat access to it as a privilege, not a right."
Enterprise Contracts and Individual Owners
The network serves two distinct client groups, each with their own service pathway. Enterprise and fleet operators — typically companies running five or more humanoid robots in operational settings — are offered SLA-backed service contracts with response times from two hours for Platinum tier clients, four hours for Gold, and next business day for Silver. A dedicated account manager is assigned to each enterprise client, supported by a technical liaison familiar with their specific platform mix and operating environment.
Individual owners — a smaller but growing segment as consumer-grade humanoid platforms become more accessible — are offered walk-in and booking-based service at all metro locations, with transparent fixed pricing on common repairs and a six-month workmanship warranty on all completed work. Loan units are available during extended repairs.
What Comes Next
The company is already planning its next phase of expansion. Beyond the Canberra opening, HUMANOID is evaluating locations in regional centres with high industrial robot density, including Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong, and Townsville. An online remote diagnostics capability — allowing technicians to triage faults and in some cases resolve software issues without the robot leaving site — is currently in development and expected to launch later this year.
The company is also in early discussions with several humanoid robot manufacturers regarding formal technical training partnerships, which would allow HUMANOID technicians to access OEM-level diagnostics tools and platform-specific training materials. The outcome of those discussions will shape the network's certification status over the coming 12 months.
For now, the message from HUMANOID is straightforward: the robots are coming, the service network is here, and Australia doesn't have to wait for the rest of the world to figure this out first.