Norway’s 1X is building a humanoid robot for the home
Norwegian robotics company 1x revealed its newest home robot, Neo Gamma on Friday. The Humanoid system will follow the NEO beta, what debuted in August. Just like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show that it performs a number of household tasks, such as making coffee, doing the laundry and vacuuming.
1x says that the bipping robot is set to step outside the lab, with limited tests at home, although the company quickly adds that the gamma is far removed from commercial scaling and implementation.
NEO Gamma represents a softer side of the humanoid industry – both figuratively and literally. 1x has built the robot to be hospitable, with a friendlier design and a suit made of knitted nylon. The latter is designed to reduce potential injuries that can result from robot-to-human contact.
Neo Gamma arrives in the midst of a sea of humanoids from companies such as agility, Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure and Tesla. Although companies such as figure have all their robot systems that work in a fake environment within their laboratory, they have all given priority to warehouse and factory deployment. 1x’s home-first approach makes it unique among his direct peers.
Home robots have always been a difficult proposition. In addition to robot -like vacuum cleaners produced by companies such as Irobot, nobody is useful on the market. This is not due to a lack of trying – the technology is simply not there.
Home Robots must be useful, reliable, affordable and considerably safer than their industrial counterparts. This is double the case, given that AgeTech is probably one of the most important goals of Home Humanoids. As the average age of the population increases, independent living will become an increasingly important technological target for older adults.
Together with a softer scale, once on progress in the built-in AI system of the gamma, points out as a key element when designing a safer robot. These systems must be extremely aware of their environment to prevent people or ownership from causing possible damage. Teleoperatie is also an important part of the safety interview. Although complete autonomy is the final goal for most, it is important that people can control the system in a pinch, especially in the house.
In addition to his unique focus, the radar of many in the industry crossed once for the first time when OpenAi was announced as an early Backer. For many, the idea of embodied intelligence-ai is with a physical presence-the next logical step for the White-Hot World of Generative AI. Since then, OpenAi has covered its bets in the humanoid space, both an investment in a competitor, figure, and countless rumors around the Chatgpt Maker’s own internal robotics ambitions.
Generative AI plays an important role with humanoids, including creating more natural interactions between person to robot. Just like Figure, it has built its own internal models that are designed to improve both the speech and body language of the robot. It is unclear how many of the new and improved functions of gammas are the result of the work of the company with OpenAI or the January acquisition of Bay Area Startup, child Humanoid.
1x did not disclose how many Neo gammas were produced or will be produced in the course of the life of the beta robot. The Product videos The accompanying launch of Friday can best be seen as proof or concept of how one of Neo’s creations could behave in a home environment.
Although we see that the first humanoid implementations go beyond the pilot phase in industrial environments, these systems still have a long way to go in terms of prices, reliability, safety and functionality before we can have a serious conversation about bringing them home.
