Humanoid Robots Are Right here… and Embarrassingly Unhealthy at Being Our Servants

People are determined to put the robots to work. The one downside is, the robots don’t “work” to any diploma. These humanoid bots are attention-grabbing. Some are even cute. Few, if any, are wherever near prime time. It was a dour scene at CES 2026, a lot so I can’t assist however surprise in the event that they ever can be.

The home robots that headlined past CES might already be on their strategy to the scrap heap. Final week, Bloomberg reported that Samsung’s famed Ballie home robot was successfully useless. The corporate provided a press release that the robotic would “inform” how Samsung works with spatial consciousness and sensible dwelling intelligence. The bot itself was nowhere to be discovered at CES 2026. Latest studies citing robotic firms themselves question whether humanoid robots are the following large tech boondoggle. China, the one place that’s positively forward of the remainder of the world on robotics, officially cited plenty of copycat firms making spinoff, ineffective bots. The lingering query is whether or not any of the robots can be able to doing something helpful.

The AGIBOT X2 doing kung-fu is fairly cute! #CES2026 pic.twitter.com/kpOLtmaJJX

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) January 6, 2026

Just as we predicted, CES 2026 was consumed with dwelling robotics. What stunned us extra was what number of had the arms, heads, and even legs that firms hope will finally change us. Sadly, the robo-maids and robo-butlers usually tend to fall down on you or spin uncontrollably than fold your laundry. All through the whole present, after they weren’t being managed remotely or working off choreographed strikes, these robots flailed, fell down, and broke totally on their very own. It was a comical and embarrassing sight for attendees.

Why had been all of the bots continuously breaking down?

Murphy’s Regulation dictates that any dwell demo will inevitably be cursed with dangerous connections or gear that gained’t work irrespective of what number of instances you examined it within the lab. The variety of robots on the fritz on the CES present flooring went past occasional points. I visited SwitchBot’s sales space the primary day the CES present flooring opened to take a look at its Onero H1 humanoid robotic. The H1 is meant to be a family machine with two articulating arms and a cute, always-surprised face. It’s meant to deal with duties like feeding the dishwasher or brewing espresso. On the sales space, a SwitchBot consultant informed me the Onero H1 was, sadly, not totally functioning. All it might do was spin forwards and backwards like a confused toddler caught in a playpen it had by no means seen earlier than.

That’s to not say the humanoid robots remained damaged all through the whole present. When it was working, the H1 would slowly drag a shirt over to a washer, slowly open the door, and slowly stick it in. I strode over to LG’s sales space to take a look at CLOiD, one other dwelling robotic with articulating fingers constructed for chores like folding laundry. The bot was, certainly, gingerly pinching a stack of towels and folding every with agonizing lethargy. At one level, the CLOiD appeared to hiccup in its routine. Quite a few LG employees shortly surrounded the bot, and one other jumped in entrance of me whereas I tried to movie it. The corporate probably managed to repair no matter current points had been inflicting the disruption, as CLOiD was again later, folding a mountain of laundry with Sisyphean dedication.

Repeatedly, the bots at CES 2026 did not carry out autonomously. We’ve seen movies of robots doing dance routines and going stiff and falling down, solely to turn into belligerent after they get again up. In a video the place The Verge was displaying off Zeroth’s Jupiter humanoid robotic, the 170-pound machine stopped working and flopped face ahead immediately onto journalist Jennifer Pattison Tuohy. With out anyone holding it up and directing it, these bots with decrease appendages are extra liable to sprawl on the bottom when one thing malfunctions. Think about if Tesla’s long-awaited, long-delayed Optimus 3 robotic, specced at simply over 125 kilos, suddenly decides to use your feet as its landing platform.

To maintain these units from crushing legs, these humanoid bots are higher off on wheels. Intel rolled out a 6-foot-tall humanoid bot by RoBee with curler skates completely hooked up to its toes. Apart from transferring at a gradual tempo, the robotic powered by Intel’s newest Core Ultra Series 3 expertise was largely only a car for a chatbot to speak to CES attendees. The opposite robots taking on house on the present flooring had been largely stationary or caught on wheels. One humanoid bot known as TomO was caught in place enjoying the piano one key at a time because of oddly articulating thumbs and fingers. Extra automatons by firms like Galbot might act as checkout clerks, utilizing a suction cup to seize empty snack packing containers and convey them to the counter.

Our favourite bots aren’t serving to round the home

These are the sorts of capabilities we’ve seen in earlier years. That’s to not say that staggered, common development isn’t one thing to be applauded. Some robotics firms, like Sharpa, confirmed off bots able to monitoring a ping pong ball and hitting it again with solely the occasional flub. One other one of many firm’s bots may very well be the extraordinarily gradual vendor in a recreation of blackjack.

Apparently, the one factor these bots are good for is choreographed fights or for squaring up within the boxing ring. Unitree, one of many few firms that guarantees to sell a relatively affordable humanoid robot, introduced out its boxing robots to the present flooring. These bots are spectacular, largely for a way effectively they reply to being knocked to the bottom or stumble to outlive a punch.

The technical work executed on these units is much extra attention-grabbing than the bots’ sensible capabilities. Judging by what we noticed at CES 2026, bipedal robotics are nowhere close to as succesful as firms promise they are going to be. Hell, they don’t meet their restricted promise in the present day. One of the best dwelling chore robots will proceed to be your belligerent youngsters. They gained’t need to fold their garments, however you possibly can assure they are going to do it sooner than any robotic current in the present day.