About

NEO the Home Robot is a humanoid robot developed by the Norwegian-American company 1X and marketed as a next-gen household helper. While iterations of the robot have been in development since 2014, 1X CEO Bernt Børnich appeared in an advertising campaign in late October 2025 to announce that the NEO Home Robot was open to preorders in the U.S. starting in 2026. The news prompted a slew of discourse, primarily surrounding the robot's appearance and the fact that it is not yet fully autonomous, with demos showing that it is still heavily guided by human operators using virtual-reality (VR) headsets to control it, rather than AI. This led to privacy concerns about allowing remote teleoperators to roam inside homes using NEO's cameras and microphone.

Various memes about NEO also spread online in October 2025, many of which fixated on the robot's sleek but demure appearance and how the product was set to be released in three different colorways (white, grey and black). Memes about the NEO Home Robot mirrored previous discourse about the Tesla Bot and the Tesla Optimus Bot, as well as becoming the subject of numerous anti-robot clanker memes and robot fetishism jokes in late 2025.

History

The Norwegian-American robotics company 1X was founded by CEO and roboticist Bernt Øivind Børnich in 2014, with the company unveiling the NEO Beta in August 2024 and the NEO Gamma in February 2025.^[1]

The company announced preorders for the NEO Home Robot on October 28th, 2025, with Bernt Børnich appearing in an advertisement that featured dreamy, retro film-like footage of the home robot helping people with chores around the house. The video was posted to Twitter / X^[2] on October 28th, gathering over 50 million views and 60,000 likes in two days.

According to the official 1X website,^[12] the official cost of renting Neo the Home Robot is listed as $499 per month, while owning one costs $20,000.

Online Presence

On October 28th, 2025, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) posted a YouTube^[3] video testing out the humanoid home robot and interviewing the company's CEO, Bernt Øivind Børnich. The video shows reporter Joanna Stern speaking with Børnich to learn about the robot's mechanics and capabilities. The video also showed a person wearing a VR headset controlling NEO's actions, indicating that the robot was not yet fully autonomous. The video gathered over 1 million views in two days.

On October 29th, X^[8] user @sytaylor posted a video of the robot awkwardly trying to load and close a dishwasher, gathering over 2,000 likes in a day.

Also on October 29th, game reviewer and X^[9] user @Grummz posted a tweet reacting to the Wall Street Journal video reviewing Neo the Home Robot, writing, "And just like that, Neo is dead. WSJ does a video interview and demo. Guess what, in the demo its 100% remote operated. Yep, you gotta let a call center into your house, watching everything you do, and have it remote control your "robot" to get anything done. Nobody will accept this." The tweet received over 10,000 likes in a day.

That same day, YouTuber and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee uploaded a video about NEO, titled "The Problem with this Humanoid Robot," in which he criticized the robot and the company's advertised capabilities compared to its current functionality. In 15 hours, the video received over 1.7 million views, 85,000 likes and 10,800 comments.

Meme Usage

As the virality surrounding the NEO robot picked up online in late October 2025, the product became the source for numerous memes and jokes across social media.

On October 28th, 2025, X^[4] user @djcows tweeted an image showing NEO the Home Robot lying in bed with a human woman, gathering over 22,000 likes in two days.

On October 29th, X^[5] user @p_e_cooper posted an image of a Neckbeard Nest alongside the caption, "my NEO Robot after I learn the 3rd worlder piloting them is mad chill." The meme received over 20,000 likes in a day.

Also on October 29th, 2025, Redditor jonnesoh posted a meme to the subreddit /r/robotics^[6] about NEO the Home Robot showing a cat-like nose and smile scribbled on its face, alongside a caption that read, "Put me on the design team," gathering over 400 upvotes in a day.

That same day, X^[7] user @Andr3jH posted an inverse of the Can a Robot Write a Symphony? meme, showing actor Will Smith telling Neo the Home Robot to "do the dishes," gathering over 30,000 likes in a day.

Neo Staring Holding Pillow

A screenshot from the Wall Street Journal YouTube video showing Neo the Home Robot looming over the camera while ominously holding a pillow began gaining traction as an image macro and caption meme online in late October 2025.

On October 29th, 2025, X^[10] user @TrungTPhan posted a meme captioned, "Good morning. Your payment was declined for the 3rd time and this is your final reminder to update the credit card on file." The post gathered over 40,000 likes in a day.

Also on October 29th, X^[11] user @0xgaut tweeted, "hey dude it's 10:23am you're late to work," gathering over 7,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References