"Home Humanoid Robots Take Over: The Future of Domestic Tech Unveiled"

Artificial intelligence is already steering vehicles, crafting essays, and coding software. Now, humanoid robots—machines designed to resemble humans and powered by AI—are on the cusp of entering households to assist with everyday tasks. Børnich, the CEO and founder of the startup 1X, is leading this charge. His company aims to deploy its humanoid robot, Neo, into over 100 homes in Silicon Valley and beyond before the year ends.

1X is one of dozens of firms racing to bring humanoids to homes and workplaces. Since 2015, investors have funneled $7.2 billion into more than 50 such startups, per PitchBook, a tech industry research firm. The humanoid boom peaked last year with $1.6 billion invested, excluding the massive sums Elon Musk and Tesla have poured into their humanoid, Optimus, since starting development in 2021.

Visionaries like Børnich and Musk envision humanoids taking over physical labor currently done by humans—think wiping kitchen counters, unloading dishwashers, sorting warehouse packages, or assembling cars in factories. While simpler robots like robotic arms and self-driving carts have long aided in warehouses and plants, companies now bet that humanoids, mimicking human movements such as walking, bending, and gripping, can handle a broader array of tasks. They argue that since homes, offices, and warehouses are designed for humans, humanoids are uniquely suited to operate in these spaces compared to other robotic forms.

This push has been years in the making, driven by leaps in robotic hardware and AI that enable rapid skill acquisition. Yet, humanoids remain somewhat elusive. Viral videos showcasing their dexterity often feature human operators guiding them remotely, and even basic chores like dishwasher loading pose significant challenges. “There are many videos out there that give a false impression of these robots,” notes Ken Goldberg, a robotics professor at UC Berkeley. “Though they look like humans, they aren’t always behaving like humans.”

At Børnich’s home, Neo greeted me with a Scandinavian-accented “Hello,” controlled by a Norwegian technician in the basement via a VR headset and joysticks. It navigated the dining room and kitchen independently but relied on the technician to speak and move its hands. For now, humanoids need substantial human assistance, a reality 1X plans to address with call centers staffed by technicians supporting multiple robots.

My first encounter with 1X’s Silicon Valley office nearly a year ago introduced me to Eve, a wheeled robot that seemed almost human—like a character from Woody Allen’s 1973 sci-fi comedy “Sleeper.” Neo, then a prototype hanging on the lab wall, hadn’t yet learned to walk. The company’s journey began in 2022 when Børnich, then running Norway-based Halodi Robotics, joined forces with Eric Jang, a 30-year-old AI researcher from Google’s robotics lab, after a Zoom call arranged by a potential investor. Jang, awestruck by Eve’s fluid movements, likened the experience to a “Westworld” scene where robots blend seamlessly with humans. “I saw a level of hardware that I did not think was possible,” he recalled. Though the investor passed, Jang and Børnich merged efforts, renaming their venture 1X, now a 200-employee firm backed by $125 million from investors like Tiger Global and OpenAI.

Six months later, I met a walking Neo at 1X’s lab. Trained entirely in a digital simulation mimicking real-world physics, it had learned to stand, balance, and step. Transferred to a physical body, Neo could dodge me if I blocked its path or steady itself if pushed, though it occasionally stumbled. “All of this is learned behavior,” Jang explained as Neo’s steps clicked across the floor. “If we put it into any environment, it should know how to do this.”

Household chores, however, are trickier. The complex physics of tasks like laundry folding can’t be fully simulated, requiring real-world data collection. At Børnich’s home a month later, Neo struggled with a refrigerator door due to a Wi-Fi glitch but, once reconnected, handed me a water bottle under technician guidance. It also loaded a washing machine and wiped counters—all remotely controlled. Yet, it faltered at times, dropping items or misjudging angles, revealing its limitations. Neo can’t lift its arms overhead and feels eerie, its human-like yet mechanical nature underscored by speaking to a technician through it.

Unlike Musk’s Optimus or efforts by Apptronik and Figure AI, which target controlled warehouse settings, 1X aims to gather vast home-based data to teach humanoids to manage daily life’s unpredictability. By guiding Neo, 1X collects sensor and camera data to refine its abilities, much like ChatGPT learns from text. “What we are selling is more of a journey than a destination,” Børnich admits, acknowledging the bumpy road ahead but touting Neo’s potential utility.

Privacy is a concern as Neo records home activities. Børnich assures that technicians only intervene with owner consent via a smartphone app, and data is held for 24 hours, deletable if unwanted. “We want you to give us your data on your terms,” he says. His goal is a humanoid adept at nearly any chore, though this could displace domestic workers—a prospect years off. With labor shortages in home care, some, like Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, see robots as aids to ease grueling tasks, provided they complement human workers.

During my visit, Neo cleaned windows but later crashed after an electrical fault, collapsing backward. Børnich lifted the 66-pound, under-5½-foot robot like a teen, laying it on a chair—still human-like even unconscious. Unlike bulkier humanoids, Neo isn’t intimidating, but its falls raise safety questions. Will people accept it? How fast will it improve? Can it truly lighten daily burdens? Answers remain elusive, yet Børnich presses on, driven by a childhood sci-fi dream shared by many: “There are a lot of people like me. They’ve dreamed of having something like this in their home since they were a kid.”