SwitchBot says its humanoid household robot can do your laundry
SwitchBot is bringing a new household robot to CES 2026. The smart home company is launching the Onero H1, which it calls “the most accessible AI household robot.” The announcement follows last year’s debut of its multitasking household bot — a robot vacuum mounted to a mobile platform.SwitchBot says the Onero is a general-use humanoid robot designed to eliminate housework that can complete “everyday actions such as grasping, pushing, opening, and organizing, while learning to adapt across different tasks and home scenarios.”A video the company shared ahead of the show demonstrated the Onero doing household tasks like filling a coffee machine, making breakfast, washing the windows, loading a washing machine, and folding and putting away clothes.The Onero isn’t a full humanoid; it has articulated arms and hands, and a face, but no legs. Its long, oblong body sits on a wheeled base for mobility, an evolution of SwitchBot’s modular multitasking bot.According to the company, the Onero uses multiple cameras in its head, arms, hands, and midsection to power its perception. It also has an impressive 22 degrees of freedom (DoF), referring to the number of independent movements it can make. For comparison, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas’ upper body has 29 DoF.Image: SwitchBotThe Onero uses an on-device OmniSense vision-language-action (VLA) model that enables the robot to learn and adapt by combining visual perception, depth awareness, and tactile feedback to understand an object’s position, shape, and interaction states.This should enable it to perform the household tasks shown in the demo video. However, as anyone who’s followed the adventures of humanoid robots this past year will know, video demos are very different from the real thing. I’ll be getting some one-on-one time with the Onero on the show floor this week and will report back.Image: SwitchBotSwitchBot says the Onero was “developed as the next step in SwitchBot’s journey from specialized devices to multi-task systems.” This speaks to a central tension in household robotics. Do we want single-purpose bots that do one thing well, such as robot vacuums? Or do we want generalist robots that can adapt to a variety of tasks? Many household chores remain difficult or impractical to automate without fundamentally changing our homes. It’s an interesting dilemma, and one I hope to see innovative solutions for at CES this year.In the near term, something in between feels more realistic for most homes. A smarter robot that can orchestrate the devices in our homes, not necessarily complete the tasks itself — an embodied smart home assistant. SwitchBot says the Onero is designed to work with its existing ecosystem of task-specific robots, which include robot vacuums, air purifiers, and humidifiers, and orchestration of connected devices is the premise behind Samsung’s Ballie and LG’s AI agent.None of these bots would have much luck in my home, as I have stairs, and they all use wheels. However, SwitchBot does have a leg up on both Ballie and LG’s bots — the company says the Onero H1 and its robotic arms A1 will soon be available for preorder on SwitchBot’s website. However, no pricing has been announced.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Jennifer Pattison TuohyCloseJennifer Pattison TuohySenior Reviewer, Smart HomePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All by Jennifer Pattison TuohyCESCloseCESPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All CESNewsCloseNewsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All NewsRobotCloseRobotPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All RobotSmart HomeCloseSmart HomePosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All Smart HomeTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.See All Tech
