1X opens NEO pre-orders — first consumer home humanoid with confirmed 2026 delivery
Norwegian startup 1X opened pre-orders for NEO, positioned as the first consumer-ready home humanoid robot with transparent pricing and a confirmed 2026 delivery timeline. The design emphasis is safe human-robot collaboration in residential environments.
NEO targets a different market segment than Atlas (industrial) or Figure 03 (manufacturing). The home use case requires compliance — a robot that can't accidentally injure a child or pet, can navigate stairs and clutter, and can be safely powered down. That's a harder safety problem than industrial; 1X has been working on it since its OpenAI-backed pivot away from manufacturing-only.
The "first consumer" framing matters because it forces price transparency — industrial humanoids can hide list price behind enterprise sales motions; consumer hardware can't. Whether NEO's pricing makes the math work for households at meaningful volume is the open question. The pre-orders themselves are the read on demand at whatever the announced price is.