Image credit: Hypershell
IFA 2026 kicks off in Berlin this week, and Hypershell has announced the Halo, an exoskeleton that powers your hips and knees together as a single unit. The company plans to launch it around November, and it hasn't announced a price yet.
The powered exoskeletons you can buy today, including Hypershell's own X series, work at the hips. That will help you climb and keep walking longer, but climbing isn't usually where your legs tend to give up. Your knees take the beating instead, on the way down a trail, on stairs, and trying to stand back up. The Halo adds a pair of powered knee joints to help with exactly those kinds of movements.
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How the Hypershell Halo fares on paper
The Halo has four powered joints, two at the hips and two at the knees, in a carbon-fiber and titanium frame that weighs 2.6kg. Hypershell says the whole unit folds down to under 8 liters, goes on in about 20 seconds, and will work with a large backpack on. The four motors output up to 1,490W combined, and a 370g swappable battery should get you about 20km of assisted walking, according to the company.
Image credit: Hypershell
Hypershell also has some solid numbers from its lab testing. The company says it leads to 40% less knee-muscle fatigue during squats and 39% less overall exertion. Those came from controlled conditions, so I'd wait for real-world testing before taking them at face value.
How it compares to other exoskeletons on the market
Nobody else right now is selling a consumer exoskeleton that powers hips and knees as one device. Dnsys will sell you a hip unit and a knee unit that can sync with each other: the $689-and-up X1 and the $1,299-and-up Z1. So if you choose that setup, you'd be wearing two separate devices. Arc'teryx and Skip made MO/GO hiking exoskeleton pants with knee assistance, but they don't touch your hips. Ascentiz just announced a modular option: separate hip and knee modules that share one belt and battery, coordinated by the same software, at €3,599 and up for the pair. The knee module doesn't have a ship date yet.
The company says the pricing details of the Halo will come closer to launch, along with which regions will get it first. Hypershell has a hip-only X series that costs $999 to $1,999 at hypershell.tech, which should give you an idea about the potential pricing of the Halo.
Should you wait for the Hypershell Halo?
Hypershell's X series was well-received, and the company has shipped what it announced so far, so I'd expect them to ship this in November as promised. If your knees are the reason you've been skipping longer hikes or dreading stairs, this is the first product built to solve that, and I think it's the most interesting exoskeleton I've seen yet. I still need to see the price and get some real-world experience on trails before I can recommend it, but it's definitely one to look forward to.
