first humanoid home robot
Dave Touretzky 04 Dec 2025 11:44 EST
This Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern's video on the 1X Neo, billed as
the first humanoid home robot, is incredibly well done. It discusses
the limitations of the technology and raises all kinds of ethical issues
around personal privacy, robot safety, and the use of human
teleoperators (an interim strategy until the company accrues enough
training data for truly autonomous operation.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3c4mQty_so
Tech blogger Marques Brownlee rightly roasts the company for its "fake
it 'til you make it" strategy, which often leads to disappointment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31dmodZ-5c
And for the adults, here's a humorous take on the robot, definitely not
appropriate for kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_SNExtznd4
This thing is scheduled to ship in 2026 for $20K. Here's a more
in-depth 30 minute interview with the company president:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHU7Y8-8k4
Big AI companies like Meta and Tesla are working on home applications of
humanoids. Will 1X beat them to the punch? Or will 1X crash and burn
when they discover that true autonomy is a lot harder than they thought?
-- Dave