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1X Hosts Hands-On NEO Demos for Tech Notables Ahead of "Biggest Announcement"

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Image: @willdepue

With just hours remaining on the countdown clock for 1X's "biggest announcement yet," new details are emerging from a pre-launch event held at the company's Palo Alto headquarters, offering the clearest picture yet of what will be revealed.

The event, described as a "coming-out party" for the company's new headquarters by tech evangelist Robert Scoble, was a curated affair for high-profile tech leaders and other guests. Attendees included AI researcher Andrej Karpathy and Carl Pei, the founder of Nothing and OnePlus, who posted a photo from the event with Scoble.

In videos posted from the event, guests were seen teleoperating the NEO humanoid robots, using Meta Quest 3 headsets. This hands-on demonstration, held in the same minimalist office space recently stress-tested by streamer IShowSpeed, provides strong evidence that the October 28 announcement will center on the launch of an early adopter program for the teleoperated robot.

Hands-On with NEO

Robert Scoble shared his impressions from the event in a detailed video, highlighting several key observations about the NEO robot:

  • Home-Centric Design: The robot is described as "very lightweight," "soft," and "designed to be safe in the home." This aligns with a recent analysis from investor Chris Camillo, who noted the robot's tendon-driven architecture makes it "meaningfully lighter and meaningfully safer" than rigid-bodied competitors.
  • Tendon-Based System: The robot uses "tendon-based arms and fingers". Scoble noted that while the current hands are "very rudimentary," the company plans to add more degrees of freedom.
  • Efficiency and Sensing: The NEO reportedly operates for "about eight hours on a battery" and consumes around 100 watts of power while standing still—comparable to a human. It navigates using "two high-resolution cameras" and does not employ LiDAR or radar, committing to a vision-based approach.
  • AI-Assisted Movement: While guests controlled the robot's arms via teleoperation, the AI handled balancing and walking. Scoble observed that "random people" were able to operate the robot without it "falling over or freaking out," indicating the motion AI is "very, very well done."

Reinforcing the Early Adopter Thesis

The focus of the event heavily reinforces the theory that 1X is preparing to launch its long-planned home pilot program. As, we, Humanoids daily, noted on X (formerly Twitter), 1X's development philosophy relies on gathering real-world data to train its AI.

Scoble's report from the event confirms this strategy. "They're tele-operated robots," he stated, adding that this is "very important for getting the training done for the AI." He also directly addressed the implications for the first users.

"The early adopters are actually going to be doing the training to make the models... to make the robot completely autonomous," he said, framing the timeline as "two years away at the earliest, but it might be, you know, five or more years away."

This model, which 1X has previously referred to as a "human-in-the-loop" system, serves as a bridge to full autonomy. It allows the company to deploy robots and gather data long before its AI is capable of handling all tasks independently. 1X has previously stated plans to deploy "a few hundred to a few thousand" robots into homes by the end of 2025.

Andrej Karpathy, who was seen demoing and even hugging the soft-bodied robot, reportedly told Scoble that the technology represents "the start of a new industry."

It's the start of a new industry.

While wilder speculation about an Apple collaboration or a new "mini-Neo" has circulated, the evidence from last night's event points to a more grounded, and arguably more significant, milestone. All signs suggest 1X is about to officially open the doors for its NEO robots to begin the long journey of learning inside real human homes.

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