We wanted Doc.
A helper. Not a slave, but something useful. To fold the laundry. To trash the coffee grounds. To wipe the counters after dinner without complaining. But hardware doesn’t care about our emotional needs unless we build the hands that make it all work.
1X is trying. The Norwegian-American company unveiled details on Neo’s new hands today. Soft companion robot meets actuated digits.
“It’s a dexterous mix.”
They mimic human tendons. Five fingers. 25 degrees of freedom. Close enough to the 27 humans actually have. It doesn’t just grab. Cameras and AI feed it context so the fingers know what they are holding before the brain realizes it. Slippage detection? Check. Odd shapes? Handled. Hyperextension? The fingers bend ways ours shouldn’t, snapping into positions humans physically cannot manage. It even has an IP68 waterproof rating. You can wash dishes with it. Or let it wash itself.
Jonathan Terfurth runs actuators for 1X. He wants the robot to operate safely beside a person who has zero technical knowledge. Range of motion pushes into “extreme” territory. But it’s grounded in human limits. It opens doors. Lifts heavy stuff. Plugs itself in. The battery dies? Neo grabs the cord and solves it.
This feels like a moment for the industry. A pivot away from the clumsy claw machines of the past ten years. Suddenly bots can handle fragile eggs or boring office tasks without looking like industrial accidents. The market is usually stuffed with terminators. Big metal things meant for military contracts and fear. 1X is building something else. A lattice-shell creature wrapped in soft material. Baymax energy. $20k upfront. Or $500 a month. You’ll have to wait until 2026 for delivery if you pay the lump sum.
Dar Sleeper handles product design. He wants peace. Not metal. Goofy safe. “Something to fit into your life,” he says. “Can’t feel like it’s from another universe.”
Judgment Day
Full automation is the end game. For now it’s partial. Remote. Teleoperation. The Wall Street Journal pointed this out last year. An operator sits somewhere else and drives Neo through a camera. It’s called Expert Mode. You call in a human for complex tasks. You give a stranger eyes in your kitchen.
This gets weird quickly.
1X seems convinced you’ll fall in love with the machine. The ads for the new hands are thick with it. Smooth jazz. Warm light. Robo-fingers caressing a wine glass. Unzipping a jacket. Fondling grapes. The humans in previous commercials stare at Neo like it’s a date. I won’t judge kink. But selling a device that invites remote eyes into your private space? While advertising intimacy? It’s a strange loop.
“Expert Mode brings a human into the loop.”
You request the connection. Only when you ask. You see the video feed. A ring light near Neo’s ear glows blue when a human is watching. You kick them out if you want to. That sounds reasonable on paper. How about the hackers though? 1X didn’t answer that question.
There is also the performance question. How much of those graceful video clips was actually code? A 1X rep said some are automated. Some are manual demonstrations to show hardware limits. Distinction matters.
We tested it live on Zoom. A Neo stood behind the executives. Sleeper asked for a finger flex. One finger raised. Lowered. Slowly. Then faster. The movement blurred into a staccato drum on the screen. Faster still. A violent shaking of flesh-simulated skin. Sleeper yelled stop. It froze instantly. Then.
A peace sign. Flickered back.
