Can You Buy a Home Humanoid Robot Yet? 1X NEO vs Figure 03 vs Tesla Optimus (November 2026)

Can you put your name down for a home robot yet? Short answer: you can reserve exactly one general-purpose humanoid for your home today, and nobody can tell you when it will turn up. Everything else sold as a "home robot" is either built for factories first or not on sale at all.

If you're seriously thinking about spending the money, this is what I'd want to know.

1X NEO is the only one you can actually reserve

Orders opened on October 28, 2025, and the deal hasn't changed much since. You put down $200, which you get back if you change your mind, and then pick one of two plans. $20,000 buys the robot outright with early delivery. $499 a month rents it, and renters get theirs later. 1X says the first year's batch of 10,000 sold out in five days.

It's about 5 ft 6 in tall, moves on tendon-driven joints that 1X says keep it quiet and gentle, and it's wrapped in soft materials. I think that last part is the smartest design decision anyone has made in this category. A 60-plus-kilogram machine walking around kids and pets has to be soft before it has to be clever.

Before you pay, there are two things I'd want you to be clear on.

First, nobody has proven delivery yet. 1X's order page still says US deliveries begin in 2026. When independent trackers checked in early October they couldn't find a single announced customer delivery, and 1X itself has said some buyers will get a robot this year and some won't.

Second, NEO is partly remote-controlled. For chores it can't manage alone, 1X offers what it calls Expert Mode: you book a session and a trained operator guides the robot from somewhere else. That's how it learns, and I understand why 1X does it. But it does mean a stranger may see inside your home through the robot's cameras. 1X says you control when that happens. Whether you're comfortable with it is a household decision, and I'd make it before signing anything.

Figure 03 looks the most capable, but it's only being sold to businesses

In Figure's demos the 03 folds laundry and loads a dishwasher. Its fabric covering comes off and goes in the wash, and it runs on Helix, Figure's own vision-language-action model. TIME put it on its best inventions list for 2025.

None of that helps if you want one at home. Figure hasn't published a consumer price or opened orders. The 350-plus robots it had delivered by April all went to commercial partners, and Figure's own leadership has described full home autonomy as a 2026 goal rather than something it has finished. For now there's simply nothing to buy.

Optimus is in production, just not for you

Tesla started early production at Fremont in Q3, which is genuine progress after years of demos. But the first robots stay in Tesla's own factories, then go to industrial customers, and even Tesla's own timeline doesn't have outside customers before the end of 2027. Homes come after that. The $20,000–$30,000 figure that keeps getting quoted is what Musk has said he's aiming for once production is at full scale. It isn't a price you can pay.

The real story might be the monthly fee

Meta's reported prototype, codenamed Max, got me thinking about pricing. TechRadar made the point this week that almost nobody will pay $20,000 upfront for a robot, but plenty of people might pay monthly for one that comes bundled with its AI and software updates. 1X's $499 plan is the first real test of that idea. I'd be surprised if others don't copy it.

Should you reserve one?

I'd only put down a deposit on a NEO if all of these are true for you:

• you live in the US
• you can wait without a firm delivery date
• you're fine with remote operators handling some tasks
• you see yourself as an early tester, not someone buying a finished appliance

If any of them isn't, I'd wait. The first verified deliveries and independent reviews will tell you far more than another launch video, and I'll write about them as soon as they show up. You can follow every robot's status in our robot database in the meantime.