In the relentless march toward general-purpose robots, the hands have always been the Achilles’ heel. Now, 1X Technologies, Inc., the robotics firm notably backed by OpenAI, has unveiled a pair of new hands for its NEO humanoid that might just crack the code. Boasting a staggering 25 degrees of freedom (DoF), these new appendages demonstrate a level of dexterity and strength that inches unnervingly close to human capability.
The company’s demonstration video is a laundry list of tasks previously confined to sci-fi, from delicately assembling LEGOs and pouring tea to using tools and even handling a credit card. The hands are a marvel of engineering, featuring a closed-loop, tendon-driven system with motors housed in the forearm for a lightweight yet powerful design. They also pack high-resolution tactile sensing for pressure and contact location, allowing for nuanced in-hand manipulation. And for those messy real-world jobs? They’re IP68 rated, meaning they are fully dust-tight and can be submerged in water, making NEO the rare robot that can actually wash its own hands.
The spec sheet is impressive: 22 actuated joints in the fingers and palm, a 3-DoF wrist, and the strength to lift a 20-pound kettlebell. The materials are food-safe, and the entire system has been tested for millions of cycles of continuous operation. 1X, which was founded in 2014 as Halodi Robotics, has been methodically building towards this moment, securing a $100 million Series B round in early 2024 to scale up production of its humanoids.
Why is this important?
This isn’t just about building a better robot hand; it’s about building a better robot brain. 1X states the primary goal is to break through the “hardware ceiling” that has limited the potential of physical AI. More dexterous and robust hands can perform a wider variety of tasks, which in turn generates a massive stream of high-quality, real-world manipulation data. This data is the lifeblood for training the complex world models and embodied AI that will eventually allow robots like NEO to learn and operate autonomously. In essence, 1X hasn’t just given its robot better hands—it has built a superior data-gathering platform to accelerate the arrival of truly useful, general-purpose humanoids.