The new hands on the NEO robot have 25 movable joints and tendon-driven actuation with a gear ratio ten times lighter than the industry standard. The feel is what's new. That's how the hand senses how hard it's gripping. Per the company's data it handles LEGO, a screwdriver, a zipper, and pouring tea.
- Announced 9 July 2026: 25 degrees of freedom - 22 in the fingers and palm, 3 in the wrist.
- Tendon-driven actuation with a 5:1 to 15:1 gear ratio, against an industry standard of 100:1 - 200:1. That's where the sense of force comes from.
- Per 1X's data the hand matches or exceeds human fine manipulation. The stated goal for 2026 is 10,000 hands produced.
I've done installs where the gap between fine and ruined was measured in millimeters. A wire strung a hair's width from failing. Walking got solved a long time ago. The hand is the hard part. Picking up a grape without crushing it takes more than doing a backflip - the flip is force and balance, the grape is feel.
I'll say what impressed me and what I'll wait to see. The gear ratio impressed me. At 5:1 instead of 200:1 the motor feels what the finger is doing - there's feedback, not just a command. That's the difference between 'grip' and 'grip just enough'. That's where the wine glass, the little screw, the grape come from. It's an engineering decision, not a decorative one, and it's paid for in complexity.
The number that will test everything isn't 25. The number is 10,000 - that's how many hands they've committed to producing this year. It's one thing to show a hand pouring tea for the camera. It's another for ten thousand hands to come off a line and work in someone's kitchen, not in front of a lens. I enjoy watching the demo. Production will tell the truth.