What are humanoid robots, what can they do today, and when will they really arrive?

Humanoid robots are machines built roughly in human shape, with a torso, two arms and a head on legs or on wheels, so that they can work in places and with tools made for people. In late October 2026 they walk, carry boxes, sort parts and attempt a few chosen chores, mostly in factories, warehouses, shops and labs, and the only one sold for housework, 1X’s NEO, is a US pre-order that 1X has not delivered to any customer’s home.

Some humanoids can be bought outright today, mostly from Chinese makers such as Unitree, whose R1 Air walking humanoid is listed at $4,900 before tax and shipping, but their makers do not sell them as home helpers or list household chores. Every price, date and claim below comes from the maker’s own site or filing, with the date it was checked. The humanoid robot tracker holds the full list of 99 models, with each robot’s status and its source.

What counts as a humanoid robot?

A humanoid robot copies the human layout: a torso, two arms with hands or grippers, and a head that usually carries the cameras. The idea is that one machine can use the stairs, door handles, shelves and tools already built for people.

The definition used on this site, and in the tracker, is a robot with a human-like upper body on legs or on a wheeled base, presented by its maker as a humanoid. Legs climb steps but need constant balancing; wheels are simpler and steadier, which is why many robots for shops and warehouses use them. Robot dogs, single robot arms and home robots without arms are left out.

Some machines sit on the line: a few home robots have arms and a torso on wheels, but their makers do not present them as humanoids, so they are left out too. The tracker explains each borderline decision in a note.

Read more: the humanoid robot glossary entry.

Who makes humanoid robots?

Companies in a dozen countries, but most models come from China. The tracker lists 99 humanoid models from 12 countries, and 73 of them, about three in four, come from Chinese makers. China’s own count is larger: on 19 October 2026 its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that Chinese humanoid products passed 400 models in the first half of the year, with output above 40,000 units, and forecast more than 100,000 for the full year. Those are production figures, not robots sold to households.

The names a reader is most likely to meet:

• United States. Tesla (Optimus), Figure (Figure 03), 1X (NEO; the company is based in the US and Norway), Agility Robotics (Digit), Apptronik (Apollo) and Boston Dynamics (Atlas).
• China. Unitree, UBTech, AgiBot, Fourier, Galbot, EngineAI, and carmakers and electronics groups such as Xpeng, Xiaomi and Chery, whose robot company AiMOGA makes a family companion robot called Mobo.
• Europe. NEURA Robotics in Germany (4NE1), PAL Robotics in Spain, which builds humanoids for research labs, and Humanoid in the United Kingdom (HMND 01). In Italy, Generative Bionics of Genoa, whose founding team comes from the Italian Institute of Technology, presented its Gene.01 on 20 July 2026 and says it is adapting it for shipyard work with Fincantieri; it gave no price or sale date.
• Elsewhere. Makers in Japan, South Korea, Israel, Canada and Australia.

There is no agreed way to say which humanoid is the most advanced: makers rarely publish figures that can be compared, so the tracker lets you filter by country, status and use instead of ranking.

Read more: Chinese humanoid robots, Tesla Optimus explained, 1X NEO explained and the weekly China robotics brief.

What can humanoid robots do today?

Mostly repetitive work for businesses, according to the makers. Some examples, each the maker’s claim with its date:

• Warehouses. Agility Robotics and the logistics company GXO said on 26 October 2026 that Digit has worked at GXO’s site in Flowery Branch, Georgia, under an agreement signed in June 2024 that they call “the first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreement for humanoid robots”, meaning the robots are rented as a service rather than sold, and that it has moved more than 100,000 totes, the plastic boxes warehouses use.
• Factories. UBTech’s 2025 annual results, filed in Hong Kong on 31 March 2026, report sales of 1,079 full-size humanoid robots in 2025 and say its Walker S2 for industrial work started mass production that year. Boston Dynamics said on 5 January 2026 that “All Atlas deployments are already fully committed for 2026”, with fleets going to an application center of Hyundai and to Google DeepMind.
• Figure’s robots. Figure said on 29 April 2026 that its factory had delivered “over 350” Figure 03 robots, allocated to its own research, data collection, housework and commercial development. On 30 June 2026 it showed Figure 03 handling parts at BMW’s Spartanburg plant, which it called a demonstration.

Homes are harder. On 17 September 2026 Figure published trials of its robot in 30 Bay Area homes it had never collected data in, on three chores it chose: tidying living rooms, folding towels and making beds. The robot completed the whole task in 56% of trials, against 9% for a version trained without Figure’s large pretraining dataset, and attempts that needed a person to step in for safety counted as failures. Figure itself writes that “The point is not that general humanoid robotics is solved.”

The cheaper humanoids on sale come with a warning instead of a list of chores. Unitree’s pages say: “Individual users are strongly advised to thoroughly understand the limitations of humanoid robots before making a purchase.”

All of these figures come from the makers; none of the sources checked for this guide is an independent test of humanoids doing chores in ordinary homes. Official videos show what worked on a given day, not how often it fails. Races, fights and sport events show what one robot did once, under those conditions.

For cleaning floors, the robots already working in homes are robot vacuums and mops, a different kind of machine, covered in How to choose a robot vacuum and mop.

Read more: What is embodied AI? on why reliable movement is still hard, and Can you buy a humanoid robot for your home? on what each maker says its robot does at home.

How much does a humanoid robot cost?

In the examples below, from $4,900 to $44,560 before tax and shipping on the makers’ own sites, and an estimated €98,000 for one European model. Most humanoids have no public price at all: 15 of the 99 models in the tracker show a price published by their maker. The table gives examples.

Robot	Maker (country)	What the maker sells it for	Price on the maker’s site (checked 31 Oct 2026)	Indicative euro estimate incl. 22% VAT	Status
R1	Unitree (China)	General-purpose humanoid; no chores listed	$4,900 (R1 Air), $5,900 (R1); tax and shipping excluded	about €5,400 (R1 Air), about €6,400 (R1)	On sale in the official shop; R1 Air shown as backordered on 31 Oct
G1	Unitree (China)	General-purpose humanoid	$13,500; tax and shipping excluded	about €14,700	Shipping to customers, per Unitree’s prospectus of 14 Aug 2026 (5,215 humanoids sold in 2025, all models); backordered in the shop on 31 Oct
H2	Unitree (China)	General-purpose full-size humanoid	$29,900; tax and shipping excluded	about €32,700	On sale through Unitree’s order form
X2 Neo	AgiBot (China)	“A compact humanoid robot for performances and interaction”	$25,600; taxes and import charges extra	about €28,000	On sale in the official store
A2 Lite	AgiBot (China)	Full-size humanoid for entertainment and commercial performances	$44,560; shipping $500 to $3,000, duties and taxes extra	about €48,700	On sale in the official store
NEO	1X (US and Norway)	Household chores	$20,000 to buy, or $499 a month; $200 refundable deposit	about €21,800, or about €540 a month	Pre-order; US deliveries “start 2026”
4NE1	NEURA Robotics (Germany)	General-purpose humanoid	Estimated €98,000 per unit for 1 to 19 units, before taxes and shipping; €100 refundable reservation fee	about €119,600	Pre-order (reservation)
Optimus	Tesla (US)	Not offered for sale	No public price	n/a	Announced; Tesla’s Q3 2026 update, of 21 Oct 2026, says production has begun in Fremont
Figure 03	Figure (US)	Home and commercial use	No public price	n/a	Pilots only: used by Figure and at business sites such as BMW; no order page

Method: US dollar prices converted at the ECB euro reference rate of 30 October 2026 (1 euro = 1.1172 dollars), plus Italy’s 22% standard VAT rate, rounded to the nearest hundred euros for purchase prices and the nearest ten euros for monthly fees; NEURA’s euro price has only the VAT added. It is an indicative estimate, not an Italian selling price: shipping, customs duties and availability in the EU are extra.

The figure that circulates most, around $20,000 for Tesla’s Optimus, is not a price but Elon Musk’s forecast of what the robot could cost once made by the million; his statements, with dates, are in Tesla Optimus explained.

Read more: Can you buy a humanoid robot for your home?, Chinese humanoid robots, and the tracker for every price with its source and date.

When will humanoid robots really arrive?

For businesses, some already have; for homes, the dates are the makers’ promises, and several have moved. The site gives every robot one of six statuses, each with a source: announced, pre-order, on sale (anyone can order it from the maker, through a shop or a sales form), shipping to customers, pilots only and discontinued. Of the 99 models in the tracker on 31 October 2026, 42 were on sale, most through a sales or quote form and sold to businesses, labs and developers; 11 were shipping to customers, according to their makers; 9 were in pilots only; 4 took pre-orders; 1 was discontinued; and 32, about a third, were still only announced. The one humanoid sold for housework, 1X’s NEO, is still a pre-order.

What the most-discussed makers promised, and what had happened by 31 October 2026:

• 1X NEO. At the launch on 28 October 2025, 1X promised “first orders shipping to consumer homes in 2026” and said it would “expand to other markets starting in 2027”. On 30 April 2026 it wrote that 10,000 NEOs had been reserved in five days, a count of refundable deposits, not deliveries, and that robots coming off the line were “being prioritized for our internal team”. On 31 October 2026 the order page still read “US Deliveries start 2026”, and 1X’s news page, latest post 9 July 2026, announced no delivery to a customer.
• Tesla Optimus. Tesla’s Q3 2026 update, filed on 21 October 2026, says “Optimus production began in Fremont on our high-volume lines”. Musk’s target for first deliveries to other companies moved from the second half of 2026, said in January 2025, to around the end of 2027, said on 21 October 2026. Tesla has announced no order page or reservation.
• Figure 03. Announced on 9 October 2025 as “designed for Helix, the home, and the world at scale”, with no price and no date for customers.
• Boston Dynamics Atlas. All 2026 units committed to Hyundai and Google DeepMind, with more customers planned for early 2027, according to Boston Dynamics.
• NEURA 4NE1. NEURA’s reservation page says it expects the robot to be available at the end of 2026.

For Italy and the rest of Europe, none of these makers gives an Italian price or a date for delivering a humanoid to an EU home, and Unitree and AgiBot, which accept orders in dollars, do not say they deliver humanoids to the EU.

Read more: 1X NEO explained, Tesla Optimus explained and the tracker, which keeps the history of every status change.

Are humanoid robots real, or controlled by a person?

They are real machines, but some of what they do is guided by people. Teleoperation means a person drives the robot from somewhere else, seeing through its cameras. It gets a job done that the software cannot handle yet, and each guided session becomes a recording that can teach the robot the task.

1X says so openly. Its order page says that “For complex tasks NEO doesn’t know, an Expert from 1X can remotely supervise its actions at scheduled times”, and 1X says owners book and accept each session; it does not publish how often that is needed.

Events and videos are less clear. At Tesla’s We, Robot event in October 2024, TechCrunch reported, citing Bloomberg’s sources, that Tesla employees remotely oversaw many of the Optimus robots’ interactions with guests, and Milan Kovac, then head of the program, wrote on X that they were “human assisted to some extent”. On Tesla’s earnings call in July 2026, Musk himself said the impressive robot demonstrations seen online “are pre-programmed or remote controlled” (video). When a maker does not say how a clip was made, the clip alone cannot tell you.

A remote operator in your home means a person can see your rooms through the robot’s cameras.

Read more: Home robots, cameras and remote operators, 1X NEO explained and, for the Tesla events, Tesla Optimus explained.

Where does a humanoid’s AI run?

Partly on the robot and, for some makers, partly on their servers. The AI that controls a robot’s body is called embodied AI: it reads the cameras and sensors, chooses a movement, drives the motors and looks again, many times a second. The newest are vision-language-action models, built from the same family of models as chatbots, which turn camera images and an instruction in everyday words into movements.

Fast reactions, such as keeping balance, have to happen on the robot, because a round trip to a data center takes too long. Figure said in February 2025 that its Helix model runs entirely on embedded GPUs, small graphics processors inside the robot, two per robot. 1X says every NEO off its production line carries an NVIDIA Jetson Thor computer for “real-time AI inference directly on the robot for safety-critical functions”. Larger models, for conversation or planning, may run in the cloud, and 1X does not say where all of NEO’s models will run. That matters: a robot that needs the cloud loses some functions when the internet drops, and its camera images have to leave the house.

The authors of the published robot models list the limits themselves: the most dexterous tasks remain hard, and a robot’s physical skills stay close to the examples it was trained on. Recording examples on real robots is slow and costly, one reason remote operators are still part of the plan.

Read more: What is embodied AI? and Edge AI explained, on running AI on the device itself.

Are humanoid robots dangerous, and what do the rules say?

The practical risks today are those of a heavy, battery-powered machine moving next to people: falling, bumping into someone, catching fingers in a joint. Unitree’s R1 page says “Users are required to maintain a sufficient safety distance from the robot at all times.” The cameras and microphones add a second kind of risk, to privacy and security, covered in the privacy guide.

In the EU, any robot sold, wherever it is made, must carry CE marking, the maker’s declaration that it meets the EU rules that apply to it. The new EU Machinery Regulation “applies on a mandatory basis as of 20 January 2027”, the European Commission says. It adds rules for safety functions that rely on AI, which in some cases must be checked by an independent body, not only the maker. The AI Act adds requirements for AI used as a safety component, on a later timetable, and the Cyber Resilience Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, sets security rules for connected products, with its product requirements applying from 11 December 2027. A robot sold before those dates may not be built to them.

China issued its first national standards for humanoid robots on 28 September 2026, effective from 1 April 2027, according to the national standards portal and Beijing’s industry bureau, which calls them the first batch. They are recommended standards, not mandatory, and they do not replace EU rules for a robot sold in Europe.

Read more: Chinese humanoid robots on CE marking and importing; Home robots, cameras and remote operators on data, the GDPR and the Cyber Resilience Act.

What should you check before paying a deposit?

• The status and its source. Is the robot on sale, on pre-order or only announced? A launch video or a delivery “starting in” date is not a delivery.
• The seller. Order from the maker’s own site or a distributor the maker names. Tesla’s own site is the only place an Optimus order could be placed, and on 31 October 2026 Tesla had announced none.
• The deposit terms. 1X calls its deposit “Fully Refundable”, but its pre-order terms allow a full refund only until 14 days after 1X sends an invitation to order, and say final pricing may change before the order is accepted.
• Delivery and full cost. Ask in writing whether the seller delivers to your country, and add shipping, import VAT, any customs duty and the courier’s fee to the price.
• Documents. CE marking, the EU declaration of conformity and instructions in your language.
• What it does on day one. The tasks the maker lists for delivery, not those in videos.
• Remote operators and data. Who can connect, when, what they see, and what the cameras and microphones send.
• Updates, warranty and repairs. How long software and security updates last, the security support period, and who repairs the robot where you live.

Read more: Can you buy a humanoid robot for your home?, with each maker’s terms.

Where to go next

• The humanoid robot tracker lists every humanoid model with its status, price, source and last check.
• Can you buy a humanoid robot for your home? compares the humanoids you can order and the deposit terms.
• Chinese humanoid robots covers the makers from China and buying from Europe.
• Home robots, cameras and remote operators explains who can see inside your home through a robot.
• Robots at home: the complete guide covers the robots that already work in homes, from vacuums to lawn mowers.

Common questions

Are humanoid robots real or remote controlled?

They are real machines, and several makers build them in factories. Some of what they do in videos and at events is guided by people, a practice called teleoperation. 1X says its NEO works on its own by default, but that a 1X employee can guide it remotely, in sessions the owner books, for chores it does not know yet. When a maker does not say whether a clip was autonomous, there is no way to tell from the video alone.

When will humanoid robots be available to buy?

Many already can be ordered: on 31 October 2026, 42 of the 99 models in the site's tracker could be ordered from their maker, most through a sales form and for businesses, labs and developers, and Unitree and AgiBot sell some in their own online shops. A humanoid sold for household chores is a different matter. 1X's NEO is a US pre-order whose order page says "US Deliveries start 2026", with no delivery to a customer announced, and Elon Musk expects Tesla to deliver Optimus to other companies around the end of 2027, with homes later. These are the makers' own dates, and some have already moved.

How much does a humanoid robot cost?

In the examples in this guide, checked on the makers' sites on 31 October 2026, prices ran from $4,900 for Unitree's R1 Air to $44,560 for AgiBot's A2 Lite, before tax and shipping, roughly €5,400 to €48,700 with 22% VAT as an indicative estimate. 1X lists NEO at $20,000 or $499 a month. Tesla and Figure have published no price, and many makers sell only on request.

Can I buy a humanoid robot in Italy or Europe?

You can place an order from Europe in the online shops of Unitree and AgiBot, priced in US dollars, but neither says on the pages checked that it delivers humanoids to the EU, and the buyer pays shipping, import VAT and any duties. NEURA Robotics, in Germany, takes refundable reservations for its 4NE1 in euros. Ask the seller in writing about delivery, warranty and CE marking before paying.

Are humanoid robots dangerous?

They are heavy, battery-powered machines that move next to people, so makers attach safety warnings: Unitree tells users to keep "a sufficient safety distance from the robot at all times". In the EU, robots must carry CE marking, and the new Machinery Regulation, which applies from 20 January 2027, adds rules for safety functions that rely on AI. Their cameras and microphones also raise privacy questions.

Can a humanoid robot clean my house?

Not reliably yet. The NEO from 1X is sold for chores but has not been delivered to customers' homes. In Figure's own trial in 30 homes, published on 17 September 2026, its robot completed the whole chore in 56% of attempts, on three chores Figure chose. For floors, robot vacuums and mops are a separate kind of machine, covered in How to choose a robot vacuum and mop.

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Topics: robotics, humanoid robots, guide