1X has announced the NEO Beta, a robot designed from the ground up to operate within customers’ homes.
The company, which has been working on humanoid robots for more than a decade, describes NEO as “an intelligent, everyday assistant.”
The robot, which is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 66 lbs, is designed to be able to navigate around an average home and can walk, jog, and climb stairs. It walks at around 2.5 miles per hour, runs at around 7.5mph, and can carry up to 44 lbs. Depending on activity, the NEO Beta can last between 2-4 hours before it will need to be recharged.
1X has previously focused on industrial applications with its previous model EVE, but NEO is the first time it has focused on consumer robots. The NEO’s artificial intelligence (AI) uses experience 1X has gained through operating EVE, and uses what the company calls ’embodied learning’ to work with natural language input (e.g. “hand me that book”) and physical space.
The company’s announcement on X was met with disbelief, with several people online opining that the robot looks like a man in a suit. “That’s def a dude in a suit,” said one user on X. “This is a person in a morph suit… we’re not even close to this yet,” said another.
Introducing NEO Beta.
Designed for humans. Built for the home. pic.twitter.com/5S6jpRjUQp— 1X (@1x_tech) August 30, 2024
“Our priority is safety,” said Bernt Børnich, CEO at 1X, in a press release on Friday. “Safety is the cornerstone that allows us to confidently introduce NEO Beta into homes, where it will gather essential feedback and demonstrate its capabilities in real-world settings. This year, we are deploying a limited number of NEO units in selected homes for research and development purposes. Doing so means we are taking another step toward achieving our mission.”
NEO also includes manual override options if an operator ever needs to intervene, and is made with soft material rather than a hard outer casing like most people would imagine a robot having.
The race to create a consumer-level robot butler is heating up, with different companies taking different approaches. Google’s DeepMind has created a robot that can play sports, and Figure AI has created a humanoid robot that can make conversation.
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