SILICON VALLEY — 1X Technologies announced its home robot, Neo, in 2022 after relocating to Silicon Valley and rebranding from Halodi. Bernt Børnich, the C.E.O. of 1X, changed the company name and moved operations to Silicon Valley that same year.

Neo stands five feet six inches tall and weighs sixty-six pounds. Its design incorporates a blend of the median American male and female proportions. The robot features two black cameras for eyes and communicates through a chest speaker using various voices, with a default A.I.-modulated masculine register. Neo's skeleton contains over one hundred motors and artificial tendons, and a motherboard in its skull translates words into physical actions.

Neo wears a beige nylon turtleneck bodysuit, gloves, and padded shoes over a see-through carapace. Its list price is twenty thousand dollars, and more than ten thousand customers have placed a deposit for the robot. In October, Neo retrieved a bottle of water during a demonstration for the Wall Street Journal, a process that took longer than a minute.

Dar Sleeper, the head of product and design at 1X, is twenty-seven years old. Børnich asked Sleeper in 2024 to design a robot that would not scare children. Sleeper previously worked in industrial design at Tesla and at the fashion brand Yeezy. He used his own body to create Neo's gait and is currently designing a portable battery pack for the robot.

About eight hundred people work at 1X's headquarters, where activities include assembly, testing, and research and development. The facility contains lathes, metal mills, and 3-D printers. It also includes Neo staging environments, such as a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a dojo with tatami mats, along with a motion-capture studio. A safety-testing zone at the headquarters involves technicians instructing robotic hands to karate-chop ripe cantaloupes.

Will DePue, a former OpenAI employee, commented on the product. "I think our house has three orders on humanoid robots," DePue said. "This is kind of like the new iPhone." He added, "Neo will probably not be a perfectly polished product, but at least it's, like, an early version of what's to come."