- 1X unveils Neo Home Robot
- It costs $20,000 and can complete many home chores for you
- On pre-order now, it’s coming in 2026
The dream or nightmare of a humanoid home robot is inching closer to reality. 1X Neo Home robot, a cleaning, dancing, listening, talking, and potentially helpful home assistant, is now on preorder, ready to march into your home and even plug itself into a wall outlet when necessary.
A little more than a year after unveiling the Neo Beta, and nine months after introducing the Neo Gamma, 1X introduced its Neo Home Robot.
Visually, Neo has come a long way – from the slightly creepy, maybe too grabby Neo Beta (they showed it with a gangly arm draped over a female companion) – to the Neo Home robot, a soft-fabric-covered, gentle-faced (though mouthless), 5ft, 6-inch, 66lb automaton.
It wears soft, stylish sneakers that might be at home on the feet of any All Birds sneaker fan. On the head are a pair of circular LED lights that help signify the robot’s intention. But it could also do that by talking to you.
According to 1X and the launch video, Neo Home Robot can hear via its four on-board microphones and talk through its three speakers. It’s running a custom Redwood AI that’s powered by Nvidia silicon. According to 1X, Redwood AI is “a vision-language transformer tailored for the humanoid form factor and capable of performing end-to-end mobile manipulation tasks like retrieving objects for users, opening doors, and navigating around the home.”
Put another way, it’s an AI algorithm custom-built for the home.
As depicted in the video, Neo Home robot can accomplish various home maintenance tasks or chores. It’s shown doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and vacuuming floors. There are things it cannot do, like mow the lawn; the robot is not intended for outdoor use. It can’t cook (yet). The rubberized, articulated hands are waterproof, but the rest of the washable, fabric-covered body is not.
In the FAQ, 1X jokes, “Should your NEO get wet, an automatic order will be placed for a child-sized plastic swimming pool and 100 kgs of Basmati rice*. * Not really, but please don’t get NEO wet.”
Very clever, 1X.
But the robot, which is set to arrive in homes in 2026, costs some serious money. You can pay $20,000 outright or sign up for a $499-a-month subscription fee. That’s not a payment plan. You simply pay until you want to return the robot.
The California-based 1X promises autonomous operation, using AI to analyze its environment and engage in conversations that include, in one launch video scene, helping you find your lost glasses (they’re hanging from your shirt, of course!).
However, for all those household chores, you’ll be using the app. “For scheduled or recurring tasks, users can use the 1X mobile app to plan Neo’s household chores,” notes the FAQ. Neo connects to the internet via 5G or Wi-Fi, though 1X recommends Wi-Fi.
Not every chore or task is covered, and for new ones, you might need 1X’s assistance. The company can, on request, let an X1 employee tap into your Neo Home robot and guide it through the task, basically training it for the next time (they promise not to save any of the personal data collected during the training process). At least it can handle stairs, though, 1X only mentions walking up stairs and not down. I wonder if you’ll have to carry it back to ground level.
The robot is expected to run four hours on a charge, and when power gets low, it can walk over to a standard wall outlet and plug itself in (if only we could do the same).
As for safety, 1X depicts the robot interacting and dancing with its owners, but I noticed that there are no longer videos of it touching humans.
“Safety has guided every step of NEO’s design to ensure it can operate amongst humans,” writes 1X in the FAQ. “This includes a host of passive and active safety features. NEO should be used only as intended. Users should remain attentive during operation and must always follow product safety instructions and guidelines when operating NEO, especially when in the presence of children, vulnerable people or pets.”
Aside from the warnings about children and pets, the comments about remaining attentive during operation are notable because the video clearly touts you leaving your home during Neo Home Robot’s cleaning activities. It’s not clear what happens if the robot gets stuck, falls, or accidentally knocks over something. The good news is that you can always connect via the app and see what Neo sees through its dual 8MP fisheye camera eyes, though I imagine watching it do the chores you’ve been trying to avoid might get old pretty fast.
This is far from the first home chore robot we’ve heard about this year. A few weeks ago, Figure AI unveiled Figure 03, another home helper bot that likes to do laundry. Unlike Neo Home Robot, Figure 03 is not on the fast track to your abode., Instead, the initial Figure O3 release won’t even be ready for home use.
On the other hand, Figure AI may get to sit back in 2026 and watch how well or poorly Neo does in the home before releasing its own humanoid home helper.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
