The robot is one and a half meters long, weighs as much as a golden retriever and costs almost as much as a new economy car.
AND NeoHE humanoid robot. It’s called a personal assistant that you can talk to and rely on to do everyday tasks like loading the dishwasher and folding the laundry.
Neo does not work cheaply. It will cost you $20,000. And even then, you will need to train this new home robot and you may also need remote assistance.
If you’re interested, pre-orders are open now (for just a $200 deposit). They will be among the first to adopt what Neo’s creator, a California company called 1X, calls an “off-the-shelf humanoid.” This contrasts with other hominids that are currently evolving. tesla AND figurewhich, at least for now, are more focused on factory environments.
Neo is of a completely different order of magnitude robot vacuum cleaner like Roomba, Eufy and Ecovacs and embody an old science fiction fantasy of robot maids and butlers. full task and it reaches us. If this is your future, read on to learn more about what awaits you.
What the Neo robot can do at home
1X’s thesis is that Neo can perform all kinds of household tasks: folding laundry, vacuuming, cleaning shelves, returning groceries. It can open doors, climb stairs and even act as a home entertainment system.
Thanks to the 1X’s rear-drive motor system, which delivers fluid movements and impressive power, Neo appears to move smoothly, with a smooth, almost human-like gait. The company says it can lift up to 154 pounds and carry 55 pounds, but is quieter than a refrigerator. It’s covered in soft materials and neutral colors, making it less intimidating than metal prototypes from other companies.
The company claims that the Neo has a battery life of 4 hours. Their needles are IP68 certified, which means they can be submerged in water. It can connect via WiFi, Bluetooth and 5G. For conversations, it has a built-in LLM. Artificial intelligence technology which supports ChatGPT and Gemini.
The main way to control the Neo robot is to talk to it as if it were a person in your house.
But Neo’s usefulness today largely depends on how useful is defined. Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal got one Take a good look at Neo at 1X headquarters and noted that, at least for now, it is largely teleoperable, meaning a human often controls it remotely using a VR headset and controller.
“I didn’t see Neo do anything independently, although the company did share a video of Neo opening a door on its own,” Stern wrote last week.
1X CEO Bernt Børnich told him that Neo will do most things independently until 2026, but also admitted that quality “may lag at the beginning.”
The company’s FAQ says: If there’s a task Neo doesn’t know how to complete, it can hire a 1X expert to help the robot “learn while doing the work.”
What you need to know about Neo and data protection
Part of what early adopters sign up for is letting Neo learn from its environment so that future versions can run more autonomously.
This learning process raises issues of integrity and trust. The robot uses a combination of visual, auditory and contextual intelligence, meaning it can see, hear and remember interactions with users throughout the home.
“If you buy this product, it’s because you accept this social contract,” Børnich told the Journal. “It’s not so much about letting Neo complete his tasks immediately, but rather about helping Neo complete them safely and efficiently.”
Neo’s reliance on human action behind the scenes prompted John Carmack, a computer celebrity known for his work on virtual reality systems and lead programmer for classic video games including Doom and Quake, to respond.
“Companies that today sell the dream of autonomous humanoid home robots would be better off embracing reality and selling ‘remote home assistance,'” he wrote in an article. Post messages on social networks Monday.
1X says it takes steps to protect your privacy: Neo only listens if it detects someone talking to you, and its cameras will block people. You can prevent Neo from entering or viewing certain areas of your home, and the robot will never be remotely controlled without the owner’s permission, the company says.
But inviting an AI humanoid to observe your private life is no easy task.
The first units are expected to ship to US customers in 2026. As an alternative to the full $20,000 purchase price, there is a $499 monthly subscription, but this will be available at an unspecified later date. Greater international involvement is promised until 2027.
Neo still has a long way to go to live up to the expectations Rosie the Robot set way back in The Jetsons. But this isn’t a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. What we see today is a harbinger of much more tangible change.
