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The robots are coming! Kind of. One of the big trends in the tech world is humanoid, autonomous robots for your household. The dream of not having to load the dishwasher or washing machine yourself is seemingly closer than ever.<\/p>\n
Advances in robot technology are making them on the verge of becoming products you can actually buy. It\u2019s a rapidly evolving area, and there are a lot of companies lining up to be the ones to finally fulfil Douglas Adams\u2019 description of robots as your plastic pal who\u2019s fun to be with<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Adrian Flux is always at the cutting edge of insurance, so let\u2019s take a look at some of the robots you can actually buy, pre-order, or at the very least dream about.<\/p>\n Boston Dynamics could probably be described as the de facto leaders in the current humanoid robot world without too many arguments. They\u2019ve been developing robots for many years, and if you remember seeing a video of a humanoid robot doing something cool over the last couple of decades, there\u2019s a very good chance it\u2019s one of theirs.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Atlas<\/a> is their current humanoid model, and while it\u2019s technically available to buy, it\u2019s targeted very much at industrial use. It is, however, a very useful benchmark in terms of evaluating the robots offered by other companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n In particular, its battery life of four hours and ability to carry up to 30kg (or be able to lift up to 50kg instantly) is about the best performance currently available. Although if it is carrying, then that battery life drops to two hours. Regardless, it\u2019s pretty impressive, and while you won\u2019t be seeing them as personal robots, it\u2019s worth bearing those figures in mind going forward.<\/p>\n The Neo<\/a> is a cute little guy with camera eyes designed to look soulful and a fabric outer layer that looks like a turtleneck onesie. It\u2019s one of the few robots on this list with actual pre-orders and a targeted release date of 2026 \u2013 although that is just for the US, with the 1X currently aiming for 2027 for international releases. It\u2019ll cost you either $20,000 (around \u00a314,800) outright or $499 (around \u00a3370) a month with a $200 deposit.<\/p>\n It\u2019s supposed to be capable of carrying 24kg or 8kg with a single hand. While the company says that it\u2019s able to do somewhere between 60-70% of tasks autonomously, exactly how accurate that is remains to be seen given there are no confirmed deliveries at the time of writing.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, for any task that it doesn\u2019t know, you can book a remote operator who will take over your Neo and complete it for you, which will also help it to learn the actions required for the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n Essentially, any early adopters will be helping the company to build its software by providing data for how to complete tasks.<\/p>\n The 4NE1 Mini<\/a> is a compact humanoid with a design from Porsche. Its big innovation is cloud-based learning sharing. Basically, this means that any time any of the Neura robots learn a new task, that information can be accessed by any of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obviously, it also has remote control functionality, and while Neura is pretty bullish on its autonomous AI capabilities, it remains to be seen exactly how much human control it will need to learn new tasks in novel environments.<\/p>\n It\u2019s got a maximum carrying capacity of just 3kg and a runtime of two and a half hours, so it\u2019s going to be best suited for light tasks and just general bragging rights that you\u2019ve got a robot in your house.<\/p>\n About as close as you\u2019re going to get to an entry-level robot here in Space Year 2026 and indeed going forward into 2027, the R1<\/a> comes in a few different versions, with the cheapest model around \u00a33,500 and the educational version about \u00a310k. Sounds great, right? Well, there is a catch.\u00a0<\/p>\n The cheapest version is non-programmable and has a number of impressive, but set-in-stone actions it can do. Those actions do include acrobatic flips and shadowboxing moves, but this base version comes with fixed fists so there\u2019s a limit of actual interaction, and its tricks are all triggered by the operator \u2013 which is at least the owner, rather than a techie in a call centre somewhere in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n The educational version gets actual hands and the ability to add programming, although this obviously requires technical knowledge, so if you\u2019re looking for a household helper straight out of the box, then this isn\u2019t the best choice by any stretch of the imagination. If you\u2019re looking for something that can do backflips, though, the R1 should be at the top of your list.<\/p>\n Similar to its more bare-bones sibling, the G1<\/a> comes in a few different varieties, but with a price tag about double that of the R1. Like the R1, the base G1 is not programmable, and while it can do its backflips and so on, those are pre-set actions. It does at least have the option to add usable hands.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth pointing out that security researchers discovered a flaw affecting some Unitree robots that allows them to be hacked<\/a>. It definitely highlights the problem of being an early adopter of technology.<\/p>\nBoston Dynamics Atlas<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1X Neo<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Neura 4NE1 Mini<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Unitree R1<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Unitree G1<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Figure 03<\/strong><\/h2>\n