The Wall Street Journal's hands-on with the 1X NEO, the first home humanoid taking consumer preorders.
Key Takeaways
- 1X NEO is the first home humanoid taking consumer preorders ($20,000 outright or $499/month), early tasks are partly human-assisted via teleoperation
- Tesla Optimus Gen 2 and Figure 03 are real and impressive, but deployed in factories, not for sale to consumers yet
- Unitree's G1 humanoid (~$13,500) and Go2 robot dog (~$1,600) ship today as developer/hobbyist platforms
- The companions you can actually buy and use: Sony Aibo (shipping), Amazon Astro (invite-only). Samsung Ballie is still unreleased
- Don't buy a cloud-dependent companion without an exit plan, Embodied's Moxie bricked when the company shut down in late 2024
Where Home Humanoids Really Stand
If you've seen the demo videos, a humanoid folding laundry, loading a dishwasher, fetching a drink, it's easy to assume you can buy one. You mostly can't, not yet. The general-purpose home humanoid is the single most hyped category in consumer robotics, and the gap between the highlight reel and the shipping product is still wide.
Here's the reality in mid-2026, broken into three honest buckets: what you can preorder, what you can buy as a developer, and what actually works as a finished consumer product today.
📋 The Landscape at a Glance
| Robot | Type | Status | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1X NEO | Home humanoid | Preorder | $20K / $499mo |
| Figure 03 | Humanoid | Industrial pilots | Not for sale |
| Tesla Optimus Gen 2 | Humanoid | Internal / factory | Not for sale |
| Unitree G1 | Humanoid (dev) | Shipping | ~$13,500 |
| Unitree Go2 | Robot dog (dev) | Shipping | ~$1,600 |
| Sony Aibo | Companion pet | Shipping | ~$2,900 |
| Amazon Astro | Companion | Invite-only | $1,599 |
| Samsung Ballie | Companion | Unreleased | TBA |
🤖 What You Can Preorder: The 1X NEO
The 1X NEO is the first general-purpose humanoid sold for the home. It's a lightweight (~66 lb) soft-bodied robot with dexterous hands, pitched at household chores. You can reserve one now for a refundable deposit, with early-access units priced at $20,000 outright or $499/month.
The honest caveat: early NEO tasks are partly teleoperated, a remote human operator can take over for complex jobs while the on-board AI learns. That's a legitimate path to autonomy, but it means the first units are as much a data-collection platform as a finished butler. First consumer-home deliveries are targeted to begin in 2026 and scale through 2027.
🏭 Real, But Not For Sale: Figure & Tesla Optimus
Figure 03 and Tesla Optimus Gen 2 are the two most impressive humanoids in the world right now, and you can't buy either. Both are deployed in their makers' own (or partner) factories, running on in-house AI (Figure's Helix, Tesla's end-to-end neural nets). Tesla has floated a ~$30,000 early price and a long-term goal under $20,000, with limited external sales targeted for late 2026 at the earliest. Treat any consumer availability date as aspirational.
🛠️ What You Can Buy as a Developer: Unitree
If you want real hardware today and you can write code, Unitree is the answer. The G1 humanoid starts around $13,500 and the Go2 robot dog around $1,600. These are developer and research platforms, not turnkey home helpers, there's no app that makes the G1 do your dishes, but they're genuinely available, capable, and a window into where the category is heading. The Boston Dynamics Spot quadruped plays in the same space at a far higher price.
🐶 Companions That Actually Ship Today
The robots you can buy, set up, and enjoy at home right now are the narrower companions:
- Sony Aibo (~$2,900): The longest-running consumer companion robot, a robotic dog with genuine personality. Note the required AI Cloud Plan (~$300/year) for full features.
- Amazon Astro ($1,599): A wheeled home-monitoring companion with Alexa and Ring integration. Still sold invite-only ("Day 1 Edition") and never went mass-market.
- Samsung Ballie (TBA): A rolling ball-shaped companion with a built-in projector, running Google Gemini. Repeatedly delayed, still no confirmed US ship date or price.
⚠️ The Moxie Lesson
Embodied's Moxie was a beloved $799 children's companion robot, until Embodied shut down in December 2024 and the cloud servers it depended on went dark, bricking every unit with no refunds. Before buying any cloud-dependent companion, ask what happens to it if the company disappears. Local-first robots (and an active community, like the open-source "OpenMoxie" effort) age far more gracefully.
How We Score Humanoids on the RAI
Our Robot Autonomy Index applies to humanoids too, adapted from floor cleaning to general capability. Navigation becomes whole-body mobility and balance; obstacle avoidance becomes manipulation and safety around people; automation becomes how many tasks run without a human in the loop; and maintenance independence becomes battery life and uptime. By that measure, today's humanoids score well on mobility but low on true hands-off automation, which is exactly why teleoperation is still in the loop.
→ Browse all humanoid robots | Browse companion robots | View full rankings
