The robot stands 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs as much as a golden retriever and is almost the price of a brand-new budget car. This is Neo, the humanoid robot. Billed as a personal assistant you can talk to and eventually rely on to handle everyday tasks, Neo could load your dishwasher and fold your laundry.
But it doesn’t come cheap: It’ll cost you $20,000. And even then, you’ll still need to train this new home bot, and it possibly requires remote assistance as well.
Interested in getting Neo for your home? You can pick from various colors that fit your home decor best.
The pitch from 1X is that Neo can do all manner of household chores: fold laundry, run a vacuum, tidy shelves and bring in the groceries. It can open doors, climb stairs and even act as a home entertainment system.
Neo appears to move smoothly, with a soft, almost human-like gait, thanks to 1X’s tendon-driven motor system that gives it gentle motion and impressive strength. The company says it can lift up to 154 pounds and carry 55 pounds, but it is quieter than a refrigerator. It’s covered in soft materials and neutral colors, making it look less intimidating than metallic prototypes from other companies.
The company says Neo has a 4-hour runtime. Its hands are IP68-rated, meaning they’re submersible in water. It can connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 5G. For conversation, it has a built-in large language model (LLM), the same sort of AI technology that powers ChatGPT and Gemini.
The primary way to control the Neo robot will be by speaking to it, just as if it were a person.
Still, Neo’s usefulness today depends heavily on how you define useful. The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern got an up-close look at Neo at 1X’s headquarters and found that, at least for now, it’s largely teleoperated, meaning a human often operates it remotely using a virtual-reality headset and controllers.
“I didn’t see Neo do anything autonomously, although the company did share a video of Neo opening a door on its own,” Stern wrote last week. 1X CEO Bernt Børnich reportedly told her that Neo will do most things autonomously in 2026, though he also acknowledged that the quality “may lag at first.”
The company’s FAQ says that if there’s a chore request Neo doesn’t know how to accomplish, you can schedule an expert from 1X to help the robot “learn while getting the job done.”
What you need to know about Neo and privacy
Part of what early adopters are signing up for is to allow Neo to learn from their environment, so that future versions can operate more independently.
That learning process raises questions about privacy and trust. The robot uses a mix of visual, audio and contextual intelligence — meaning it can see, hear and remember interactions with you in your home.
“If you buy this product, it is because you’re OK with that social contract,” Børnich told the Journal. “It’s less about Neo instantly doing your chores and more about you helping Neo learn to do them safely and effectively.”
Neo’s reliance on human operation behind the scenes prompted a response from John Carmack, a computer industry luminary known for his work with VR systems and the lead programmer of classic video games, including Doom and Quake.
“Companies selling the dream of autonomous household humanoid robots today would be better off embracing reality and selling ‘remote operated household help’,” he wrote in a post on the X social network.
