Summary

Based on slides presented by Bernt Børnich, cofounder and CEO of 1X Technologies, the firm’s Neo humanoid robot is scheduled to debut in 2025 for a set of early adopters in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Milburn said 1X is likely to be conservative about where it places Neo initially – meaning homes with children would be avoided due to the higher safety concerns. Neo is only 5’ 4" and 66 lbs, with four hours of battery life, but it could still do damage if it fell on a child. The biz is looking specifically for customers who want to provide feedback and help it gather the data to improve Neo.

The limited autonomy of the first robots headed into people’s homes follows from the fact that, like autonomous cars, a lot of data is required for a machine to operate in a residential environment – and that data has not yet been gathered. Simulated data can help, but for humanoid robots to navigate effectively in the human world, they have to stumble and fumble before they can walk among us.

Just as Waymo robotaxis initially were accompanied by a human supervisor, Neo bots and other domestic human-like machines will head out into the world, awkwardly, under human oversight, to gather the data required to allow them, eventually, to operate on their own. And as with mobile phones, expect that the privacy policies imposed by robot makers will not afford much privacy – the robot’s video record of dropping the breakfast you requested will help company engineers improve its performance.