flexa-ai 0.2.0

Crowdsourced egocentric manipulation data for robot learning - zero custom hardware

Flexa

Crowdsourced egocentric manipulation data pipeline for robot learning.

Turn iPhone recordings into robot training data. Zero additional hardware required.

Install

pip install Flexa

With GPU support (for local object detection + hand pose):

pip install Flexa[gpu]

With simulation (for MuJoCo replay):

pip install Flexa[sim]

Quick Start

Download and explore the dataset

from Flexa import download_dataset
import h5py

# Download from HuggingFace
path = download_dataset("Flexa/pick-mug-v5")

with h5py.File(path, "r") as f:
    ep = f["episode_0"]
    qpos = ep["observations/qpos_arm"][:]       # (270, 7) joint positions
    ee = ep["observations/ee_pos"][:]            # (270, 3) end-effector XYZ
    actions = ep["actions/target_qpos"][:]       # (270, 7) target joints
    print(f"Mug lift: {ep.attrs['mug_lift_cm']:.1f}cm")
# -> Mug lift: 17.7cm

Process a new recording

# Parse .r3d file from Record3D
Flexa process recording.r3d --object mug --output ./my_dataset

# With cloud GPU processing (GroundingDINO + HaMeR)
Flexa process recording.r3d --cloud --output ./my_dataset

Use as a library

from Flexa import parse_r3d, spatial_trajectory
from Flexa.export import to_lerobot_hdf5, to_rlds_json

# Parse iPhone recording
data = parse_r3d("recording.r3d", output_dir="parsed/")

# Generate robot trajectory (after hand pose extraction)
traj = spatial_trajectory(
    hamer_results="parsed/hamer_results.json",
    object_poses="parsed/object_poses_3d.json",
)

# Export to LeRobot format
to_lerobot_hdf5(traj, qpos_data, "output/data.hdf5")

Pipeline Architecture

iPhone (.r3d)
    |
    v
[1. Parse] ──> RGB frames + LiDAR depth + camera poses
    |
    v
[2. Detect] ──> GroundingDINO: open-vocab object detection
    |
    v
[3. Hand Pose] ──> HaMeR: 3D hand mesh reconstruction (93.7% coverage)
    |
    v
[4. Retarget] ──> Spatial trajectory: hand motion -> robot EE targets
    |
    v
[5. Export] ──> LeRobot HDF5 | RLDS JSON | Raw JSON

Key Results

• 18.1cm clean mug lift in MuJoCo simulation from a single iPhone recording
• 93.7% hand pose coverage via HaMeR (no wearable sensors needed)
• $0 contributor hardware cost (core tier: iPhone with LiDAR only)
• 9-55x cheaper than teleoperation-based data collection

Supported Formats

Format	File	Use Case
LeRobot HDF5	data.hdf5	HuggingFace ecosystem, policy training
RLDS JSON	episode.json	RT-X, Octo, Open X-Embodiment
Raw JSON	raw.json	Custom pipelines, analysis

Citation

@article{nyamekye2026Flexa,
  title={Flexa: Crowdsourced Egocentric Manipulation Data at Consumer Cost},
  author={Nyamekye, Christian},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:TODO},
  year={2026}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0