AsRobotWith the rapid development of the industry, many people are very much looking forward to having a… in their homes in the future. AI Humanoid robots that help with all kinds of household chores, big and small, to lighten the load of daily life. Just when we thought it would still be years away, overseas company 1X recently announced that itsNeo “Home Robot” for home useHumanoid robotPre-orders are now officially open, with shipping expected in 2026.
As for the price, it’s certainly not cheap — there’s a one-time purchase option at $200,000 USD, and they also offer a subscription plan at $500 per month. But that’s not even the main point. The company claims the Neo Home Robot can handle the vast majority of household chores, yet at this stage, nearly all of those chores actually rely on “remote human labor” to get done.
The home-use humanoid robot “Neo” is now officially open for pre-orders! But there are still many issues at this stage.
1X’s latest Neo Home Robot is a home humanoid robot that can clean, dance, listen, converse, and even return to plug itself in to charge. This is the final version following the Neo Beta prototype about a year ago and the Neo Gamma released nine months later, with significant changes in appearance.
The image below is the original Neo Beta prototype, also humanoid, but its face is just a black mask, looking a bit creepy:
The final official version of the Neo Home Robot is noticeably friendlier and cuter. Standing about 168 centimeters tall and weighing around 30 kilograms, it’s covered in soft fabric on the outside, with a gentle face but no mouth, and supports direct voice communication.
He was also wearing a pair of soft shoes on his feet:
According to the official introduction, Neo has four built-in microphones to receive sound and three speakers to respond. It is powered by the Redwood AI system, driven by NVIDIA chips—a vision-language model designed for the humanoid robot form factor that enables end-to-end operation, such as helping to fetch items, opening doors, and moving autonomously around the home.
As for battery life, it is 4 hours; when the battery is low, it will automatically go to the wall socket to charge:
Neo supports 5G or Wi-Fi connectivity (Wi-Fi is officially recommended). Users can schedule recurring tasks through the 1X mobile app and check what Neo is currently doing remotely at any time. When the robot is unable to complete a task, users can use the built-in Expert Mode to book a 1X operator, who will remotely control the robot to manually complete the task while enabling the robot to learn.
Although the official video shows Neo is capable of performing multiple household chores, including doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and vacuuming the floor, it’s clear that it hasn’t been fully developed yet. In the foreign media WSJ’s hands-on test video, everything was done by humans remotely controlling the robot, rather than the robot completing the tasks on its own:
Moreover, even with a real person controlling it remotely, the dishwasher challenge still took nearly 5 minutes to complete. The process was simply opening the door, placing a few utensils and cups inside, and closing the door:
Additionally, there’s another key point: for users who pre-order the Neo Home Robot, 1X mentioned in the video that they agree to share usage data with 1X, which helps them improve the product. Although it seems reasonable, after spending so much money ($200,000), being forced to share data—hard to say how many people would accept that.
If it is for training needs to improve the accuracy of doing household chores in the future, it should be done locally rather than uploaded to the cloud, as this poses significant security and privacy concerns.
1X CEO said: “We’ll blur faces and let you set no-go zones in your home, but if you want to be at the forefront of technology, that’s part of the price.”
WSJ Real-World Test Video:
MKBHD also pointed out an issue: in the video, 1X gives the impression that the robot can autonomously complete all requested tasks, but that’s far from the truth. Even though officials in the WSJ video specifically emphasized that Neo would be able to autonomously handle most household chores when pre-order customers receive it in 2026, there’s still an enormous gap between the product’s current state and its future ideal state.
This means selling the dream before the product is finished is very dangerous. There have been several failed cases before, such as the Humane Pin. A device costing $200,000—would many people really be willing to spend that much money, freely sacrifice their privacy, and act as beta testers?
So, the appearance of this humanoid robot does give people a pretty nice dream to hold onto, but whether it’s actually as wonderful as it seems will only be revealed next year. Maybe a year from now, humanoid robots will have advanced at lightning speed, who knows. But spending that much money right now to pre-order a dream? I wouldn’t even consider it.
Source: KOCPC Chinese