Factory floor first — why factories are making household robots possible

In Spartanburg, South Carolina, two Figure-02 robots moved over 90,000 sheet metal parts in eleven months and contributed to the production of more than 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles. At Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Unitree robots unload luggage and clean cabins. Schaeffler has contractually committed to deploying several thousand humanoid units across its global facilities by 2032.

This is the industry that's currently financing the household robot.

Not because that's its goal. But because the production volumes, training data, and engineering hours now flowing into factory environments are driving the technology down to a price point that will eventually make sense for private households. A good analogy is the electric car battery: in 2012, one kWh of capacity cost around USD 1,000. Today it's under USD 80. Not because someone specifically developed the battery for the mass market, but because Tesla, BYD, and others have built millions of vehicles.

The same thing is happening with robot actuators, only faster. High-performance joints for humanoid systems currently cost CHF 2,500 to 3,500 per unit. At the volumes that Schaeffler and others will be ordering, these prices will drop dramatically within a few years.

What's often overlooked here: the technically harder part doesn't lie in the factory. A factory is a controlled system — known objects, defined lighting conditions, regulated processes. A living room is the opposite. Children, pets, a wine glass on the floor, a dog that suddenly barks. The fine motor control a robot needs to pick up a raw egg or help an elderly person stand up is a different category entirely from stacking boxes or turning screws.

1X is already selling its NEO for USD 499 per month, with first deliveries starting in 2026. LG unveiled its CLOiD for the home at CES. Both products are real — but both currently cover only a very limited range of tasks. Vacuuming, simple transports, assistance in clearly defined situations.

Goldman Sachs predicts a market of USD 38 billion by 2035, up from today's USD 2.9 billion. That's realistic — but not because household robots are already delivering on science fiction's promises. Rather, because industry and logistics are scaling the market until the technology becomes cheap enough to make economic sense in homes.

Until then, it's worth paying attention to what's happening in factory halls right now. That's where the pace of everything else is being decided.