With customisable looks, conversational AI, and chore automation features, NEO aims to bring general-purpose robotics into everyday life.
The American-Norwegian robotics and AI company, 1X Technologies, has introduced its most ambitious product yet – a humanoid home assistant robot named NEO.
With its latest tech, the company aims to shift humanoids from industrial or research prototypes into the home space.
Founded originally under the name Halodi Robotics by CEO Bernt Børnich and re-branded in 2022, 1X Technologies’ mission is to “create a truly abundant society through general-purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously.”
It comes with built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and 5G. NEO has a three-stage speaker setup in the chest and pelvis area, and it doubles as a home entertainment device. When it comes to intelligence and autonomy, NEO is backed by a built-in large language model (LLM) for conversational interaction. The company claims that its audio intelligence knows when it is being addressed, and visual intelligence gives it contextual awareness. With this, the humanoid can recognise ingredients on a kitchen counter and suggest dishes. Besides, it also has memory functionality that allows it to recall past context and personalise assistance over time.
Users can also automate chores with NEO. The robot supports chore scheduling and real-time task execution with verbal or button commands. The company said that owners can also schedule a 1X Expert to train the robot on new or custom tasks.
NEO signals a shift from labs to living rooms. While the home environment may pose more challenges, especially concerning human safety, the payoffs may be huge, such as time freed, mundane tasks being automated, and more.
Even though the specs of NEO are compelling, reportedly its autonomy is still limited, and in cases it is being tele-operated by human staff. This essentially means that initial units are likely to act more like remote-controlled helpers than autonomous assistants.
