Humanoid Hype Meets Reality: 1X's $20K NEO Home Robot Draws Skepticism, Memes

The humanoid bustle looked willing to enter the dwelling room this week—till viewers saw what 1X’s $20,000 dwelling robot can genuinely create.

On Tuesday, the Palo Alto startup unveiled NEO—a modern household robot it said can fold laundry, stock dishwashers, prepare shelves, and study serene chores through AI. However after The Wall Avenue Journal’s Joanna Stern published that the robot’s demo used to be tele-operated by humans, pleasure speedily changed into doubt.

“I relate there’s loads of exaggerated expectations available, and of us are no longer appreciating that,” UC Berkeley Professor of  Industrial Engineering Ken Goldberg knowledgeable Decrypt. “There’s loads of irrational exuberance—the kindest formulation I would possibly well perchance perchance also build it—around these vogue of things. It’s traumatic for us within the research field, on memoir of we genuinely feel that launching something esteem here’s premature.”

Goldberg puzzled whether there used to be any genuinely necessary application beyond the novelty of someone announcing they’d a robot of their dwelling, in conjunction with that while the premise would possibly well perchance perchance even be attention-grabbing, it used to be unclear if a real market existed for it.

“So as that’s what I apprehension about,” he said, “on memoir of whenever you happen to acquire loads of hype, there in most cases is a backlash, and of us would possibly well perchance perchance also genuinely lose self belief in robotics altogether.”

The launch positioned NEO as an early survey of domestic AI at scale, however critics swear it’s any other instance of promoting hype—and a prototype parading as a performed product.

“Here’s a preorder for a humanoid dwelling robot that can worth $20,000 or $500/month when it (perchance) ships subsequent three hundred and sixty five days, and currently is no longer performed,” tech reviewer Marques Brownlee wrote on X. “I explore this as extra of a hype reel for a part that they’re hoping to be ready to construct within the future… which is popping into SO genuine with products on this day and age.”

NEO’s debut also inspired an prompt wave of memes. Many joked relating to the robot’s household feature taking an awkward turn, with loads of viral posts depicting “tele-operated” versions of NEO in bed with customers’ spouses, showing the absurdity of paying $20,000 to let a total stranger within the encourage of a VR headset trail around your space.

When Stern got an in-particular person demo, she had the NEO are trying the identical chores proven in 1x’s promotional video, with from time to time hilarious results. Fetching a water bottle from a fridge 10 feet away took over a minute, while loading a few dishes right into a dishwasher took bigger than 5 minutes. Stern also well-known that the model she tested required frequent breaks to frigid down and recharge.

Worse, sooner or later of the demo, each job used to be operated remotely by a human pilot carrying a VR headset.

Aloof, Stern concluded that the robot used to be foremost and called the demonstration meaningful, describing it as “the muse of bodily AI in our lives.”

“Spending the day with NEO used to be esteem spending the day with a toddler,” she said, acknowledging that the educational curve for dwelling robots used to be likely to be steep and long. “The following couple of years just is not very always genuinely about proudly owning a tidy-necessary robot. It is about raising one [and] letting it study out of your space routines and chores, all on the expense of the privateness of your interior sanctum.”

Now not all people used to be so forgiving. These privateness fears had been echoed by AI specialists and on social media, where customers puzzled the premise of a networked robot with cameras and distant operators transferring freely through non-public areas. AI researcher and creator Gary Marcus said the shriek extends far beyond the dwelling.

“The privateness issues would possibly well be spacious,” Marcus knowledgeable Decrypt. “And the actual quantity of productiveness won is probably going to be negligible.”

Marcus called the sample acquainted. AI companies indulge in long promised breakthroughs esteem artificial general intelligence, however as a substitute are discovering programs to monetize particular person files, in most cases by turning deepest knowledge into targeted promoting.

“Robot files recorded within the dwelling would possibly well perchance perchance also factual be the subsequent stage within the surveillance capitalism stir,” he said. “One other formulation to earn intimate files in step with overblown promises about what can genuinely be delivered.”

Lawyer Marc Hoag also flagged issues about 1X’s subscription mannequin, calling its $499-a-month supply “doubtlessly too just right to be factual.” In a detailed breakdown of the corporate’s terms, Hoag well-known that the $200 reservation rate doesn’t lock in a closing worth and even ascertain the payment structure. Consumers won’t study the actual subscription worth or stipulations—akin to minimal term length, cancellation policy, or return route of—till they receive an official relate invitation.

“My wife and I genuinely genuinely desire to insist this part on a subscription basis if ideally suited for novelty and to comprehend a look at it out,” Hoag wrote. “However no longer lustrous the solutions to a minimal of some of these questions above—in particular subscription term, cancellation policy, and return procedures—genuinely build a detailed in our otherwise spontaneous decision tree.”

While loads of the reactions online cried corrupt, some trade voices told patience.

“For now, it’s all distant operated, and it’s aloof struggling a chunk to create accepted stuff,” posted AI for Folk podcast co-creator Gavin Purcell. “This isn’t crapping on it—it’s factual that these things is HARD.”

On Reddit, nonetheless, the mood used to be less forgiving. One commenter called the demo “a frigid bathe after the promo,” noting that NEO couldn’t fabricate a single job autonomously.

“It genuinely sounds esteem their AI isn’t willing, however they assume—or hope—this would possibly well occasionally be by the point they initiating delivery devices,” the particular person wrote.

One other said early traders would possibly well perchance perchance indulge in to aloof demand to behave as “testers” for 1X’s system, warning that security stays a a lot bigger obstacle than hype.

“A dwelling robot would possibly well perchance perchance also instructed your oven, leave water working, fall on a chunk one or a pet, earn a knife to prepare meals, and create something surprising that results in an harm,” they wrote. “The listing of likely security factors is quite never-ending.”

Even 1X acknowledges that early potentialities will would possibly well perchance perchance indulge in to aloof be tickled with broad files collection.

“Possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance indulge in to aloof be okay with this for the product to be necessary,” 1X founder and CEO Bernt Børnich knowledgeable the Wall Avenue Journal.

The corporate said this would possibly well occasionally grab knowledge through NEO’s onboard cameras to pink meat up performance, while blurring of us within the robot’s survey and respecting particular person-outlined “no-hump zones.” Aloof, that setup won’t reassure all people.

“In 2026, whenever you happen to buy this product, it’s on memoir of you’re tickled with that social contract,” Børnich said. “With out your files, we can’t construct the product greater. I name it the ‘Mountainous Brother, Mountainous Sister’ precept—Mountainous Sister helps you; Mountainous Brother monitors you. We’re very mighty the Mountainous Sister. The extra files you share, the extra necessary we would possibly well perchance perchance even be, and also you pick out where on that scale you want to to be.”

1x did now come what would possibly well respond to an shriek for observation by Decrypt.