What NEO is trying to be
NEO is pitched as a human-scale robot that lives in your house, handles unglamorous chores, and gets smarter the more you use it. It is not a toy or a sci-fi cosplay; the design brief is “fold laundry, put dishes away, open doors, flip lights, tidy counters.”
The company is explicit that NEO will ship to U.S. consumers in 2026, with two ways to buy: a $20,000 Early Access purchase (priority delivery and a 3-year warranty) or a $ 499-per-month subscription that arrives later; both paths start with a $200 refundable deposit.
The second part of the pitch is about learning: NEO comes with “foundational autonomy,” and when it hits a chore it does not yet know, you can schedule Expert Mode so a vetted teleoperator guides the task while the robot learns.
In other words, NEO is built to be autonomous in the long run, but during the early years it will sometimes ask for help—and that help is a human on the other side of a network connection. 1X says that Expert Mode is scheduled and permission-based, not an anytime backdoor.
The hardware, without the haze
On paper, NEO is a pragmatic home form factor. It is about 5′6″ tall and 66 lb, so it fits doorways and can reach counters without feeling like a warehouse robot on vacation. 1X quotes 4 hours of runtime from an 842 Wh battery, with a “quick charge” figure of “six minutes per hour of runtime.”
For the home, quiet and soft matter more than raw torque, so the design uses tendon-driven, compliant actuation under a soft, knit-sheathed body. The spec sheet even calls out audible noise of 22 dB (quieter than a modern fridge) and ingress ratings of IP68 for the hands and IP44 for the body—translation: wet hands are fine, the whole body is splash-resistant, but this is not a pressure washer.
Compute is listed as “1X NEO Cortex (NVIDIA Jetson Thor),” with dual 8.85 MP stereo fisheye cameras, beamforming mics, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/5G, and onboard LLM support. Claimed strength numbers: lift 154 lb, carry 55 lb, arm payload 18 lb. Treat those as upper limits until independent testing confirms them in messy homes.
Two small but telling bits: 1X calls out self-charging (NEO plugs itself in) and provides a mobile app that can schedule chores, check status, and yes, remotely pilot the robot when appropriate. Those are the kinds of “boring” details that often decide whether a robot becomes an appliance or an abandoned conversation piece.
The reality check: autonomy meets Expert Mode
You will see two kinds of videos in your feeds. The first shows NEO confidently tidying; the second shows a journalist revealing that a human operator was behind some of that smoothness. Both can be true. The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern documented a session where a teleoperator, wearing a VR headset, was “behind all those moves,” underscoring the human-in-the-loop reality of early units.
Even WSJ’s public pages and video teasers centre the question “how much still requires a human operator’s help?” which is precisely the right question to ask before you put a robot in your living room.
Independent tech outlets have been equally direct. Engadget notes that owners will use an app to schedule when a teleoperator can take over NEO and specify tasks; NEO “will learn chores via teleoperation” at the start. This is not a secret—it is the plan. If the idea of a remote expert stepping in to guide the robot bothers you, NEO may not be your robot yet.
The vibe online: curiosity, concern, and memes
People are split. One camp is excited, treating this as the clumsiest version we’ll ever see and cheering the pace of progress. The other camp thinks the slick videos hide a lot of remote help and wonders whether we’re buying a dream with a preorder button. In between sits a big privacy knot: a camera and mic on wheels in the living room. Who gets access, how “permission-based” actually works, what happens around kids, guests, and late-night wandering—those questions keep popping up.
There’s plenty of humor too: jokes about “backstage crews,” gifs of robots folding towels into modern art, and the usual “my cat will be the final boss” energy. Under the jokes is a clear bar for trust: transparent controls, obvious indicators when anyone else is driving, and repeatable performance on boring chores. People say they’ll judge it by how it handles real mess—cables, dishes, sticky counters, thresholds—not by a demo kitchen.
The consensus vibe: launch hype is fun, but the robot earns a spot at home only if it saves time without creeping anyone out. Reliable, unsupervised chores beat one perfect reel every time.
What the product page tells you (and what it implies)
The 1X pages are unusually explicit for a first consumer humanoid: pricing, deposit, delivery window, warranty term, and a clear statement that NEO “works autonomously by default” but can “schedule a 1X Expert” for chores it does not know. You also see the expected trappings of a home device—machine-washable suit, pinch-proof joints, soft body, body-language cues, and emotive ear rings that signal state—because if a robot is going to live in your home, the edges matter almost as much as the algorithms.
One more implication lies in plain sight: Redwood AI, 1X’s in-house “generalist” model for learning chores, is front and centre. If 1X can collect enough high-quality, permissioned demonstrations from Expert Mode and early users, skill learning could accelerate. That is the best. The counter-argument is that in homes, long-tail edge cases never end: every drawer handle is slightly different, every detergent cap sticks a little, every towel folds weirdly after a hundred washes. The race is between the data flywheel and the combinatorics of domestic life.
The big three questions to ask yourself before you preorder
1) What is your minimum acceptable autonomy?
If your bar is “press one button and the kitchen is clean,” you should wait. If your bar is “I am okay approving occasional Expert sessions while it learns, as long as they are scheduled and transparent,” then NEO’s model can make sense. The company’s copy is clear about scheduled, permission-based teleoperation; your comfort with that statement decides half the purchase.
2) What is your privacy posture at home?
This is a mobile, networked, camera-equipped machine with two-way audio. Best practice is straightforward: put NEO on a separate SSID/VLAN, restrict outbound access by profile, and store logs and recordings locally where possible. Draw literal no-go zones in the app and social no-go zones as household rules. If you cannot accept that setup, do not try to talk yourself into it because a video looked cool. (1X’s FAQ and order page emphasise scheduling, permissions, and that you can pilot or monitor via app. Use those controls vigorously.)
3) What chores will actually return time?
The spec sheet lists impressive numbers—lift 154 lb, carry 55 lb, 22 dB, IP68 hands—but a great home robot is about dexterity and repeatability. If NEO reliably moves laundry baskets, loads and unloads dish racks, opens the pantry, wipes counters, and fetches towels without knocking over the dog’s water bowl, that is a huge win. The first independent long-form tests should focus on those workflows, not a staged demo. Until then, treat heavy-lift figures as headroom, not baseline. 1x.tech
Where the press is landing
Mainstream coverage has focused on price, delivery year, and the realities of teleoperation. The Houston Chronicle and People capture the basic facts (2026 window, $20,000 purchase or $499 per month, not fully autonomous yet), while tech press leans into the “remote assist to learn” framing. Even hobbyist outlets like PC Gamer and Heise honed in on the Expert Mode angle and the privacy trade-offs, which tells you how dominant that storyline is right now.
Strengths worth caring about
The value proposition is refreshingly boring.
Instead of party tricks, 1X is aiming at boring chores and domestic UX. That is the right call. The safest path for home humanoids is to be polite, compliant, and helpful, not flashy. The soft body, pinch-proof joints, and gentle actuation are all oriented for coexistence with kids, pets, and furniture. If you have shied away from stiff, metallic biped videos because they look like they would scuff your baseboards, NEO’s industrial design will feel more approachable. 1x.tech
The company is unusually transparent for a launch.
Concrete pricing, a dated ship window, a refund policy for the deposit, and a written description of teleop are not typical for a first consumer humanoid. Plenty of household-robot unveilings hide behind vibe reels and “coming soon.” 1X put its terms on the page and opened orders. That does not prove execution, but it is a stronger starting point than a mood video and a waitlist. 1x.tech
The data strategy has a shot.
If Expert Mode sessions are common in the early months and if users opt in, 1X could build a high-quality household dataset tuned to real homes rather than lab benches. The flywheel—permissioned demos → skill learning → fewer demos—has worked in adjacent fields. The open question is speed: can that curve bend fast enough to feel magical within your three-year warranty?
Red flags that deserve scrutiny
Teleoperation is not a footnote; it is a core ingredient.
This is a design choice, not a temporary embarrassment. If you are uncomfortable with scheduled remote guidance, NEO will frustrate you. No amount of “autonomy by default” wording changes that in the near term. Engadget reports that owners will schedule teleop windows and specify tasks; the WSJ demo showed exactly that in practice. Believe those signals.
Unknowns remain where it counts.
Battery under load with lots of walking and manipulation, fall-recovery on thresholds and rugs, fine motor reliability across real dishwashers and cabinet pulls, and graceful error handling in clutter—all of that will need third-party torture tests. A single kitchen filmed just right is not the same as your kitchen on a Tuesday after soccer practice. Until independent reviewers post multi-day runs with messy constraints, budget for some hand-holding. (Redditors are already trading dishwasher-door and “missed the drawer lip” anecdotes from the demos.)
Support and service shape the entire experience.
Early Access promises a 3-year warranty and premium support; the subscription plan ships later with different terms. That is fine on paper. In reality, the practical questions are spares, turnaround time, and time-zone coverage for Expert Mode. If you are outside the U.S., note that U.S. deliveries take priority, with deliveries to broader regions following later.
What living with NEO might actually look like
Week 1–2: onboarding and boundaries.
You clear a charging zone and pick a default “park” orientation. In the app, you draw no-go areas (bathrooms for now, kids’ rooms after bedtime), set notification rules, and create a shared household policy for Expert Mode: who can approve sessions, what hours, which rooms are off-limits. You run a few supervised chores—fetch towels, wipe counters, move laundry baskets—and see how often it asks for help. 1x.tech
Months 1–3: chore ladder and repeatability.
You ladder up to dishwasher racks, pantry doors, and trash bags. The goal is “does it do the same thing the same way every time?” If it fails, you file a bug and try again during a scheduled teleop window so it can learn. The novelty fades; the ROI begins when you stop thinking about it. If you keep needing Experts every other day, you either adjust expectations or pause your experiment and revisit after a few software releases. 1x.tech
Month 6–12: honest accounting.
You will know if NEO saved you time. The metric is not “wow moments,” it is how many mundane minutes disappeared from your week. If that number is high and the privacy burden feels worth it, you have the world’s most expensive but steadily improving housemate. If it is low, you proved the right thing: today, a well-chosen robot vacuum/mop and a wire-free mower still return the most hours per dollar for most households. (And those do not require teleop.) That is not a dunk on NEO; it is a signpost for the category’s pacing.
Should you preorder?
Yes, if you are an early adopter who enjoys being part of the learning loop, has a clear privacy plan, and values the experiment as much as the chores it completes. The hardware looks thoughtful, the UX language is human, and the company has put real terms on the table. The launch window and the deposit’s refundability de-risk the first step. 1x.tech
Not yet. If you want set-and-forget autonomy, you are not comfortable with scheduled teleoperation, or your home has many unpredictable hazards. In that case, bookmark NEO, skim the first wave of independent stress tests, and revisit after the model’s “foundational autonomy” graduates into a dependable, repeatable household skill set. Heise and other outlets are already treating global rollout and timing realistically: 2026 U.S. first, other markets later. Patience may pay.
Bottom line
NEO is the boldest consumer humanoid push we have seen yet: a candid plan, a real preorder, and hardware aimed at living with people rather than just wowing a trade-show crowd.
The shape of the controversy—teleop, privacy, promise versus present—makes sense because it strikes at home norms, not lab demos. If you bring NEO home in 2026, you will be an active participant in its education. If that makes you smile rather than squirm, you are precisely the kind of person this first generation is built for.
