Hair Braiding Robot: From Cornrows to HaloBraid and ABB

A full head of knotless or box braids can keep a client in the salon chair for six hours or more, and the braider's hands and wrists feel every one of them. That long appointment is the problem a hair braiding robot is meant to solve, and in 2026 the first devices are close to reaching salons. This post goes through how braiding was done by hand for thousands of years, what textile braiding machines changed and what they could not, what braid assist devices such as HaloBraid actually do, and where cobots like ABB's GoFa and YuMi might fit. The last part covers the problems nobody has solved yet.

A braider works on a customer's hair at a roadside salon, 2017. Photo: Adaku Nwakanma / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How braids were made by hand for 5,000 years

Braiding is one of the oldest hair crafts we can trace. Rock paintings on the Tassili plateau in the Sahara, dated to around 3000 BC, show women who appear to wear cornrows. In Nubia, archaeologists found the remains of a young girl buried with cornrows between about 550 and 750 AD. Cornrows are also documented in the Nok culture of Nigeria, the Mende of Sierra Leone and the Dan of Côte d'Ivoire. The method was the same everywhere: a skilled person with a comb and some oil, working for hours, often for family and neighbours.

Fine cornrows on a woman in Dimma, Ethiopia, 2014. Photo: Rod Waddington / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The tools barely changed. A braider sections the hair with a comb, crosses three strands over and over, and for many modern styles feeds in extension hair as she goes. West African women have also worn threaded or wrapped styles since at least the 18th century, with black thread wound tightly around each section in place of a braid. Cornrows alone can take up to five hours, depending on how many rows there are and how thin they are. Waist length box braids and knotless braids take longer, which is why braiding is still booked as a whole day appointment.

A child's hair sectioned, braided and wrapped with black thread, 2026. Photo: Meritkosy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Machines learned to braid long before they could touch a head. In a maypole braiding machine, bobbin carriers weave around each other along a winding track. The design suited the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution, and once electric motors drove them, these machines were common in factories by the early 1900s. They make shoelaces, rope, cable sheaths and hoses. They could never braid hair, though. A braiding machine pulls fibre from bobbins it controls completely, while a stylist works with hair that is still growing out of a person's scalp.

A historic maypole braiding machine with its bobbins in the Wilkinson Machine Shop. Photo: Bestbudbrian / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

HaloBraid and the first braid assist devices

The first serious attempt to bring that automation into the salon comes from Halo, a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded by biomechanical engineer Yinka Ogunbiyi. Her HaloBraid won $75,000 at Harvard's President's Innovation Challenge in May 2025. In June 2026 Halo raised a $7 million seed round led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, with AlleyCorp and Bling Capital also investing. Ogunbiyi told TechCrunch that hair is one of the trickiest materials to manipulate, and that she borrowed methods from materials science and inkjet printing. On September 2, Halo named celebrity hairstylist Vernon François its first Creative Engineer, working with the engineering team before a launch the company says is due later this year.

A stylist braids extension hair into a client's natural hair, the step that braid assist devices take over. Photo: Meritkosy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Headlines call HaloBraid a robot, but it is a braid assist tool and does not braid a whole head. The stylist still sections the hair, makes the parting pattern, starts each braid and adds the extension hair. The device then takes over the repetitive three strand braiding further down the length, which Halo says it does up to five times faster while matching the stylist's style. The company's own line is "started by hand, finished by Halo". TechCrunch named Braidiant, an automated handheld braider from founder Chisom Okwor, as the most notable competitor. Neither company sells a robot arm.

Braiding at an outdoor street salon, where a full head can take most of a day. Photo: ISeeAfrica / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB has no hair braiding product, and no ABB robot braids hair in a salon today. Some of its robots could still be useful near this job. The GoFa CRB 15000 cobot has torque sensors in all six joints and stops when it feels unexpected contact, which matters next to someone's head. The dual arm YuMi IRB 14000 was built for small, delicate parts, and its two arms work a bit like a pair of hands. In composite factories, industrial robots already pass mandrels through large radial braiding machines to lay carbon fibre over a shape. Anyone testing a braiding cell would plan the paths in RobotStudio before letting an arm near a client.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot, which senses contact through torque sensors in its joints. Photo: ABB

Where hair braiding robots go next

In salons, the next few years will probably bring assistance before full automation. Parting, judging scalp tension and adding hair are the skilled parts of the job, and they are also the hardest for a machine. A device that finishes the long, repetitive end of each braid could shorten appointments and spare stylists' wrists. Ogunbiyi has said her team is already thinking about a second device to take braids out, a job that can take nearly as long as putting them in. Like the robot barber projects, these tools are built to work in the stylist's hands.

ABB's dual arm YuMi IRB 14000 handling small parts beside a lab worker. Photo: ABB

A home hair braiding robot is further away. Hair textures vary enormously, wet and dry hair behave differently, and braids that are too tight can damage the hairline over time. A home device would need sensors that measure pull on the scalp, force limits like the ones cobots such as GoFa use when they work next to people, and software that can see where a parting should go. It would also have to cost less than the alternative most families already have, a relative or friend who braids for free. Robotic hair washing ran into similar questions.

ABB's GoFa cobot is guided by hand and stops when it senses contact. Photo: ABB

Cost is the first open problem. Salons are small businesses, so a device has to pay for itself in extra appointments. Safety is the second: standards for robots that touch people's heads are still thin, and any arm near a face needs strict speed and force limits, such as the zones ABB sets with SafeMove. Then there is skill. Braiders carry knowledge passed down for generations, and a machine that ignores it will braid badly. I expect the tools that last to be the ones designed with stylists from the start, which is how Halo says it works.

Plaiting long braids at a street salon in 2024. Photo: Olgatladi2020 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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