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1X Fits Home Robot NEO With 25-DoF Tendon-Driven Hands

July 9, 2026 at 19:24 EDT

Robotics

1X Technologies on July 9, 2026 unveiled a new hand for its home-oriented humanoid robot NEO. It offers 25 degrees of freedom (DoF) in total—22 across the fingers and palm plus a 3-DoF wrist—combining a closed-loop, tendon-driven design that pulls tendons like human muscles with high-resolution tactile sensing at its core.

July 9, 2026 · 1X Technologies

A Robot Hand That Thinks Like Human Muscle

1X unveils a new 25-DoF hand for its home humanoid NEO — a closed-loop, tendon-driven design pulling on tendons like muscles, fused with high-resolution tactile sensing to finally tackle the "hand problem."

Degrees of freedom — 22 fingers & palm + 3 wrist

45N

Reported grip force

±0.2mm

Positional accuracy

IP68

Dust & water rated · food-safe · millions of cycles

The DoF climb — staged updates to 25

Each block = 1 degree of freedom (above 20)

initial

interim

now

Thumb opposition emphasized in an anatomically informed layout.

HOW IT WORKS · tendon drive, sensing loop

Forearm motors — quasi-direct-drive, low gear (5:1–15:1)

→

Tendons pull fingers — light tip, low inertia

→

Tactile skin senses pressure, position, slip

→

Adaptive, backdrivable grasp — fingers yield to impact

Strong reception

"Force transparency & backdrivability are key" — could solve a long-standing hand problem
Vertical integration enables scale: hundreds built, targeting 10,000 hands/year in 2026
A person with quadriplegia requested support toward independent living at home

Still to verify

Can AI models fully exploit this many degrees of freedom?
Long-term durability and reliability in real homes
True value tested only after hardware ships

The NEO robot & go-to-market

168cm

height

30kg

weight

~75 DoF

whole body

~70kg

lift capacity

$20K

or $499/mo · U.S. H2 2026

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