The dream of a completely autonomous, Rosie-from-the-Jetsons-style robot aide is finally edging toward existence. 1X Technologies, an AI and robotics company based in Palo Alto, California, has officially opened up pre-orders for the NEO Home Robot, which it boldly claims is the "world's first consumer-ready humanoid robot".1 The vision is ambitious: automation of "boring and tedious chores" like folding clothes and cleaning, back to users' free time.But the NEO carries a sci-fi price tag, a premium set of leading-edge specs, and a critical operations caveat that will have potential buyers weigh convenience against home privacy.
NEO: The Hardware - A Home Environment, Safety, and Precision Design
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| (Image Credit : 1x.tech) |
Unlike factory humanoids made to heft heavy payloads and factory floors, the NEO is tailored for a safe, home environment.
At 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 66 pounds, a pretty doable weight 3, the NEO is human-scale but surprisingly light, where safety prevails over brute force. The robot is covered in a soft material and has a friendly, mouthless face and, most strikingly, "stylish sneakers". The design includes all the necessary safety features like a soft body cover and no pinch points on joints.
Beneath the bonnet, the NEO is a sophisticated device:
- Brainpower: It employs 1X's propriety 1X NEO Cortex chipset powered by the high-performance Nvidia Jetson Thor architecture.3 This gives the robot immense amounts of processing power, up to 2070 FP4 TFLOPS, required to facilitate real-time vision and complex task processing.
- Dexterity: It possesses high Degrees of Freedom (DoF) in its hands (22x2) and arms (7x2), allowing precision manipulation.
- Practicality: Its hands are rated IP68 (submersible), so it can operate with liquids or spills with no problem.
- Mobility: It boasts a substantial maximum run speed of 6.2 m/s and walking speed of 1.4 m/s.
- Endurance: The 842 Wh battery provides a claimed 4-hour run-time, though the robot is smart enough to plug itself into a socket to recharge on its own.
Why Your Robot Needs a Remote Operator
The robot employs 1X's propriety Redwood AI, a "vision-language transformer" that can execute basic tasks such as fetching items, navigating the house, and opening doors.2 Users can program a list of things to do and the robot will attempt to execute them autonomously.
But the brutal fact of complex household tasks tends to exceed the reach of modern AI. Whenever NEO comes across a task that its training has not encountered, it defaults to a mandatory procedure called 'Expert Mode'.
'The Privacy Trade-Off'
'Expert Mode' is the mechanism 1X uses to bridge theory-to-performance gap. It has a human 1X worker in the US remotely "oversight" or operating the movements of the robot directly using a VR headset, providing a first-person view through the robot's cameras. It is crucial to development because every guided session provides the high-quality, real-world data necessary to rapidly refine the Redwood AI model.6 This is the "social contract" of ownership. As 1X CEO Bernt Bornich put it: "If you buy this product, it is because you're comfortable with that social contract. If we do not have your data, we can not make the product better".
1X also includes protections for this remote access:
- Owners must actively establish the session and allow the access by voice command or through a smartphone app.
- Users have "full control over each session".
- The robot's ring-shaped LED lights on its head (its "emotive ear rings") signal color changes whenever a human operator is actively in control of the unit, providing an obvious visual cue.
Despite the protections, use of teleoperation has generated skepticism, with some commentators noting that they "didn't see Neo do anything independently" in initial demos, and the robot would sometimes flop over.
Price, Availability, and the Value Proposition
The NEO Home Robot is now available pre-order, firmly positioning itself in the luxury tech segment:
- Early Access Purchase: $20,000 (plus a $200 deposit). These units are anticipated to begin shipping to consumer homes in the U.S. in 2026 and go international beginning in 2027.
- Subscription/Lease: $499/mo. This is a lease, not a payment plan, and it will be at least six months before the user would want to bring the unit back. These will ship after the early access buys.
NEO vs. Tesla Optimus: Which Robot Wins?
NEO's strongest competitor in humanoid space is the Tesla Optimus Gen 2. The main difference is philosophy 10:
| Robot | Primary Focus | Key Metric | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1X NEO | Home chores, Finesse, Safety | Data-driven AI refinement | |
| Tesla Optimus | Industrial automation, Heavy lifting | Strength and endurance | ∼125 lbs |
Although Tesla tries to hit a consumer price of under $20,000 for future Optimus models , NEO gets there first with a homeowner-only approach.
Worth the cost?
To the average consumer, the exorbitance of the prevailing price and requirement for human intervention for difficult tasks make the NEO an expensive luxury item. Accounts indicate that, in the meantime, employing a human housekeeper in the classical sense can still be "cheaper, more effective, and less invasive". But for the wealthy pioneer, the $20,000 buys a ringside seat to the advancement of autonomous AI, so the NEO is more of an investment in robotic future than an appliance.