Friendly home robots have been a science fiction dream for a long time. Obedient, helpful machines that do your laundry, take out the trash, maybe cook dinner and clean up after you. But if robots are going to do all that, they’re going to need hands to make it all happen.
1X, a Norwegian-American robotics company, today revealed details about the five-fingered hands attached to its soft, helpful robot companion Neo.
The arms are built with actuators designed to replicate the way tendons in the arms move human hands. 1X says this gives Neo’s arms 25 degrees of freedom of movement, which is slightly less than the 27 degrees of freedom that human hands normally have. Cameras and smart AI technologies help understand the larger context of what your fingers are trying to grasp. It’s a nimble mix that gives the Neo boot a very wide range of motion. 1X says the hands can grasp strange shapes and detect when something is slipping out of their hands. Fingers can also move very quickly and hyperextend in directions that human fingers cannot. They also have an IP68 waterproof rating, which means the robot can wash its hands on its own.
Provided by 1X
This is the range that engineers have tried to dial in to match what a human can do. Jonathan Terfurth, 1X’s director of actuators and arms, says the range of motion can be even better than a human’s, allowing it to open doors, lift heavy objects, and even plug in when the battery starts to die.
“You want to be able to work with a person who has never worked or interacted with a robot, and you still want it to be safe, compliant and soft,” Terfurth says. “The range of motion might be a little extreme, but we try to be very close to what humans can do so we can live in the world.”
Together is part of growing up A ChatGPT style moment for robotics, where bots have evolved from clumsy machines with claws to capable handlers capable of delicately moving delicate objects and becoming increasingly useful in managing small daily tasks and boring office chores.
Humanoid robots tend to dominate the market hard, bulky Terminators intended for demonstration for some defense industry contract. 1X takes a different approach for its robot. Neo is a soft, flexible robot wrapped in a three-dimensional lattice. Its design is inspired by characters such as Baymax, the friendly robot from the Disney film Big hero 6. In limited quantities, the early access price is $20,000, or $500 a month to have it in your home, though a lump sum will prioritize delivery in 2026.
