Building a running shoe is, by any reasonable measure, an absurdly complicated process. A conventional pair involves somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 individual manufacturing steps — cutting fabric panels, stitching seams, gluing layers, trimming edges — typically spread across multiple factories and dozens of human hands. It’s a supply chain assembled over decades, optimized for scale rather than speed or precision.
On wants to collapse all of that into about three minutes.
The Swiss running brand, known for its clever, chunkyu sole geometry and a devoted following among runners, has been quietly building toward a manufacturing upheaval. The technology is called LightSpray™, and the newly announced LightSpray CloudMonster 3 Hyper is its most accessible expression yet.
A Robot Arm, 1.5 Kilometers of Filament, and No Stitches
Instead of cutting and stitching multiple fabric panels together to create this shoe, a robotic arm sprays a continuous polymer filament directly onto a shoe last — the foot-shaped form that gives shoes their shape. The arm traces precise paths across the last, depositing roughly 1.5 kilometers of material in a single unbroken sequence, building up a seamless, one-piece upper from scratch. The resulting model lacks seams, laces, and joints where layers might delaminate on a long run.
The final shoe upper looks almost woven — a latticed, porous structure with a sock-like fit. That porosity isn’t just aesthetic: it’s functional, designed to regulate temperature and allow airflow in a way that a traditional sewn upper can’t easily replicate. Because the material is sprayed rather than layered, the company can tune the structure in zones, with denser coverage where runners need support and lighter deposition elsewhere.
On developed the entire system in-house. The robots, the spray paths, and the software that orchestrates it all were built by On’s own engineers — because, as the company’s Chief Innovation Officer Scott Maguire has noted, what they needed simply didn’t exist on the market. The result is a portfolio of more than 200 patents covering both the materials and the robotic systems themselves.
Scaling up LightSpray
LightSpray debuted in 2024, initially reserved for On’s elite athletes. The first production facility, a four-robot setup in Zurich, opened in July 2025. Now On has opened a second factory — this one in Busan, South Korea — equipped with 32 robots and capable of a 30-fold increase in global LightSpray production capacity. The LightSpray CloudMonster 3 Hyper is the first shoe to come off the Korean line.
The scale-up matters not just for supply, but for iteration speed. In traditional footwear development, the cycle from concept to production runs 18 to 24 months. Because the LightSpray process integrates design and manufacturing so tightly — software updates to the spray paths in Zurich can be pushed directly to the Busan machines — On says it can now compress that timeline to as little as three or four months.
Meet the CloudMonster 3 Family
The CloudMonster line, which launched in 2022, has become On’s flagship max-cushion platform. The third generation arrives as a three-shoe family, each targeting a different type of runner.
The CloudMonster 3 ($190) is an everyday workhorse. It features a triple-layer CloudTec® cushioning stack, a dual-density Helion™ foam midsole, and a curved rocker geometry designed to propel the foot forward with each stride. A Nylon blend Speedboard® stores and releases energy for what On describes as an “extra pop” of propulsion.
The CloudMonster 3 Hyper ($220) is designed as the high-mileage specialist. Developed in close collaboration with On’s Athletics Club (OAC) athletes, it runs 20 percent more foam than its predecessor, with an upgraded Helion™ HF compound tuned for resilience at high volume. The plateless design is a deliberate choice — where carbon plates boost race-day performance, they also increase leg fatigue during training.
Then there’s the LightSpray CloudMonster 3 Hyper ($330) takes everything that makes the Hyper great and replaces the traditional upper with the robot-sprayed LightSpray™ construction. The final shoe is made up of just eight total components: one upper, two midsole pieces, and five small rubber elements. It weighs 205 grams in a men’s 8.5 — 90 grams lighter than the standard CloudMonster 3.
The Bigger Picture
It’s easy to read LightSpray as a performance story — lighter shoe, faster runner. But the technology’s implications extend beyond the finish line. A manufacturing process that compresses 200 steps into one, requires less physical space, generates less material waste, and can be remotely updated like software is a genuinely different model for how physical goods get made.
On has stated that its team of roughly 400 R&D specialists — material scientists, roboticists, and AI engineers — has so far revealed only three percent of LightSpray’s long-term potential. The company plans to extend the technology beyond running into other product categories, with additional collaborations and drops planned throughout 2026.
For now, the LightSpray CloudMonster 3 Hyper is available in a limited North American release on March 5, 2026, with a global launch following on April 16. The standard CloudMonster 3 launches the same day, March 5, with the CloudMonster 3 Hyper arriving March 19.
AT A GLANCE: CLOUDMONSTER 3 FAMILY
CloudMonster 3 — $190 • 295g (M US 8.5) • 35mm heel stack • Launches March 5, 2026
CloudMonster 3 Hyper — $220 • 274g (M US 8.5) • 39.5mm heel stack • Launches March 19, 2026
LightSpray CloudMonster 3 Hyper — $330 • 205g (M US 8.5) • 45mm heel stack • Limited release March 5; Global April 16, 2026
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