1X gives its NEO home robot faster hands for the hardest household tasks

Why it matters

1X is trying to sell a consumer humanoid before full household autonomy is solved. The hand update makes NEO more capable, while exposing how much the product still relies on remote human supervision and customer trust.

Bernt Oivind Bornich's 1X detailed new five-finger hands for the NEO home robot on July 9th, pushing the Norwegian-American robotics maker's consumer pitch toward the part of household work that humanoid robots still struggle to do reliably: touch, grip and manipulate everyday objects.

Wired reported that the hands use tendon-style actuators meant to mimic the way human hands are pulled by tendons in the arm. 1X told Wired the new hands have 25 degrees of freedom and can detect when an object is slipping. 1X's own order page, which still lists NEO's hands at "22x2" degrees of freedom, also says the hands have an IP68 submersible ingress rating and can move at 8.0 meters per second.

That discrepancy between the 25-degree figure 1X gave Wired and the 22-per-hand figure on 1X's public order page matters because dexterity is the sales case for NEO. A robot that can talk, roll through an app and recognize a room still has to unzip a bag, pick up wet dishes, open a door, handle laundry and plug itself in without breaking the home it is meant to serve. 1X says the NEO home robot can self-charge, use a voice interface, run on its Redwood AI model for household chores and call in a human operator for complex tasks through "Scheduled Expert Mode."

Bornich founded 1X in 2014 as Halodi Robotics, according to 1X's company history, with a stated goal of building general-purpose robots that can work alongside people. That origin explains why 1X has avoided the factory-first marketing of many humanoid competitors. NEO is sold as a home product, wrapped in a custom 3D lattice polymer body, with covered joints, low-inertia tendon drives and a machine-washable nylon suit and shoes.

The softness is part of the strategy. Jonathan Terfurth, 1X's director of actuators and hands, told Wired that 1X tries to keep the robot "very close to what humans can do" so it can operate around people who have never used a robot before. Dar Sleeper, 1X's vice president of product and design, told Wired that 1X wants NEO to feel like a "peaceful and fun" presence in the home.

The business model is less soft. 1X's order page lists two paths into NEO: a $499 per month subscription or $20,000 ownership with a three-year warranty, premium support and priority delivery. 1X says U.S. deliveries start in 2026. Wired reported that the early access purchase option will prioritize 2026 delivery.

The hand update also sharpens the privacy tradeoff that comes with 1X's approach. 1X's own product page says that, for chores NEO does not know, a 1X Expert can remotely supervise actions at scheduled times so the robot can learn and complete the task. Wired noted the obvious consequence: a robot in the home with cameras and remote operation can become a window into the customer's space. Wired reported that 1X says experts can only enter when requested, that users can monitor what is captured through the mobile app, that an ear ring light indicates when a person is connected, and that the user can disconnect the expert.

That human-in-the-loop system is also a product truth check. 1X says the goal is full automation, but NEO's hardest work still appears to depend on a mix of onboard autonomy, remote supervision and demonstrations. Wired reported that some 1X videos show machine-articulated motions, while others were operated by humans to show the hardware's upper limit. The robot's American Sign Language demonstration, Wired reported, was remotely operated by a person.

1X has the capital base to keep iterating. In January 2024, 1X announced a $100 million Series B with participation from EQT Ventures, Samsung NEXT, Skagerak Capital and Nistad group. 1X said at the time that it had raised more than $125 million in less than 12 months after a March 2023 Series A led by OpenAI and Tiger Global, and that the Series B would help bring NEO to market while supporting enterprise clients in logistics and guarding.

The funding history frames the hand reveal as more than a hardware demo. 1X needs NEO to prove that a consumer humanoid can be sold before it is fully autonomous, improved through use and trusted inside private homes. Faster fingers help 1X show progress on the physical side of that argument. They do not remove the harder burden: convincing early customers that a $20,000 home robot with remote expert operation is useful enough, private enough and reliable enough to live with.