Humanoid robots are finally making it into homes

Honestly, many of us didn’t expect it to happen so soon. We’re all used to seeing personal humanoid robots in the sci-fi flicks, but never thought it’d happen in our lifetimes. But, the future is now, apparently. 1X just announced its new NEO Beta line of personal humanoid robots.

AI is the biggest buzzword in tech nowadays, and we mostly associate it with chatbots and image generators. However, before the huge AI boom (decades before), we’ve been dreaming of bringing AI into the real world. Robots have existed in popular culture for the better part of a century, and it’s finally becoming a real thing. Just look at all of the progress that Boston Dynamic has made.

Now, another company is looking to make a name for itself. Named 1X, this company is looking to bring the personal robotic butler, or “Butlerbot” into reality.

The 1X NEO Beta is making it to homes for testing

As with all stories like these, you won’t see these around the world for several years if at all. 1X is an OpenAI-backed company that unveiled a robot a few months ago named Eve. This robot rolled around on wheels and had simple crab-claw hands made to pick up a limited range of devices.

However, the company had bigger plans, as it showed off the NEO Beta prototype. This is a bipedal robot that has five-digit hands. This means that it can pick up more types of objects. It comes in at a surprisingly light 66lb (30 kg). So, it weighs about as much as a small child. This 5.41-foot-tall robot looks like it will be your personal helper.

Right now, we know that it will be able to lift items, move them, place them, and maybe perform some other rudimentary actions, but that’s about as much as we know. We don’t know if the NEO Beta will be able to perform other tasks.

Being a “butler,” we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s trained to do things like cleaning, retrieving items, opening doors, and showing off to your neighbors.

These robots are in testing

While we don’t know what these robots will be able to do, a limited selection of people will find out. For the time being, you can’t simply order one of these guys to your house. The NEO Beta is being distributed to a limited number of households for testing purposes. They’re on a limited beta run to help the company gather data and see how they behave in a wide variety of scenarios.

We don’t know how many units were sent out for testing or how long the testing process will be. However, a ton of other important information is up in the air. For instance, how much will these guys cost? 1X didn’t give an exact price, but it’s expected to be around the price of “a relatively affordable car.” That’s pretty vague, but that makes it sound like a unit will cost in the 10s of thousands of dollars. That seems about right.

Being a prototype, there’s no telling when we’ll start to see retail units out in the wild. A device like this seems extremely complex, so who knows when it will hit the shelves? However, 1X is already keen to start mass production of this robot.

What about safety?

That’s always a prime concern with technology. Either we have basic self-preservation of sci-movies like The Matrix and iRobot have rotten our brains. In any case, don’t expect these robots to start blasting lasers. 1X’s CEO, Bernt Børnich, said that, “Safety is the cornerstone that allows us to confidently introduce NEO Beta into homes…” So, let’s hope that this is true.