1X, a Norwegian-American robotics company, has released new details about the hands on Neo, its soft humanoid robot for the home. The company is pitching dexterity as the missing piece for domestic robots: laundry, doors, plugs, glasses, odd objects, all the annoying physical stuff that voice assistants have been pretending to help with for years.
The hardware claim is straightforward. 1X says Neo’s five-finger hands use actuators intended to mimic the way tendons in the arm drive human hand movement. According to the company, that gives the robot 25 degrees of freedom, close to the 27 degrees of freedom usually associated with a human hand.
1X says the hands work with cameras and AI systems that interpret what the robot is trying to grasp. The company says Neo can hold irregularly shaped items, detect when an object starts slipping, and move its fingers at high speed. The fingers can also bend beyond normal human range, and the hands carry an IP68 water-resistance rating, which 1X says would let the robot wash its own hands.
A human-ish hand for a human-ish house
Jonathan Terfurth, 1X’s director of actuators and hands, told Wired the company is trying to keep Neo’s movement close enough to human capability that it can operate around people safely. He said the range of motion may exceed a person’s in some cases, helping the robot open doors, lift heavy objects, and plug itself in when its battery runs low.
Neo’s body is also meant to look less like a defense contractor’s bipedal trophy and more like a domestic appliance with limbs. 1X wraps the robot in a soft 3D lattice shell. Dar Sleeper, the company’s vice president of product and design, told Wired the goal is a robot that feels safe, soft, and comfortable in a home rather than like something imported from another genre.
The company is selling early access in limited quantities. Pricing is $20,000 upfront or $500 per month, according to 1X. Paying the full amount gives buyers priority for delivery in 2026.
The demo problem is the operator problem
The awkward part is autonomy. 1X says its long-term target is a fully automated Neo, but Wired reported that the robot currently includes teleoperation. That means a human operator can remotely control the machine and see through its camera when the feature is used.
1X calls this Expert Mode and presents it as a way to let a person handle chores the robot cannot yet do on its own. The company says human experts can enter only when requested by the user. It also says users can watch the video feed through a mobile app, a blue ring light near Neo’s ear shows when a person is connected, and the user can disconnect the operator at any time.
That still leaves a plain security question: a mobile, camera-equipped robot in a private home is a tempting target if access controls fail. Wired said 1X did not immediately answer questions about how it would stop malicious operators or hackers from taking over the robot.
The teleoperation issue also muddies the demos. When Wired asked whether 1X’s videos showed autonomous behavior or remote control, a company representative said some clips were machine-articulated while others were operated to show the hardware’s upper limit. 1X said a video of Neo lifting a weight with a finger curl showed real automated capability. A video of Neo performing American Sign Language was remotely operated by a human.
Wired also reported seeing a fully automated Neo on a Zoom call with Terfurth and Sleeper. In that demonstration, the robot raised and lowered its fingers one by one, then drummed them fast enough to blur on camera before stopping when Sleeper told it to. The hands may be the most convincing part of Neo so far. Whether the robot attached to them can work safely, privately, and independently in a home is still the harder claim.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
