Tuesday Labs, a New York City robotics lab and design studio, has opened reservations for Voxel, a bipedal home robot meant to learn and take over routine household tasks. A $200 reservation holds a spot, while full pricing is expected to be around $20,000 when Voxel ships sometime in 2028, The Verge reported.
The company calls it a “droid butler.” The Series-1 model joins other household robots, such as Weave Robotics’ Isaac 1, that aim to handle chores beyond mopping or vacuuming floors.
Arms, eyes and backward knees
Voxel’s main tools are two highly articulated arms with seven degrees of freedom. Each ends in a simple gripper, not the dexterous fingered hand found on machines such as Boston Dynamics’ Atlas. The arms extend from the top of a torso that also serves as the head, which has a small mouth.
Pixelated, animated eyes sit near the robot’s waist, well below a hidden pair of stereo RGB cameras. A separate wide-field camera lets Voxel monitor an entire room.
It walks on a pair of Z-shaped legs with knees that bend opposite to human knees. The design is intentional, allowing the robot to bend its knees for balance and to raise or lower its height while standing close to kitchen cabinets, tables and shelves.
In all, Voxel is mostly humanoid, with a few liberties. It trades finger dexterity for simpler grippers and puts its face lower on its body than a human would.
What it is meant to do
Tuesday Labs’ website details the hardware at length but says less about capabilities and household benefits. Voxel is meant to handle basic autonomous tasks, including decluttering and putting things back where they belong. It is also meant to handle routine chores such as watering plants, fetch items like books and help locate lost objects. For example, a user could ask where Voxel last saw the TV remote.
At launch, Voxel will not cook dinner or change diapers. The Verge noted that if it can reliably remember where you left your keys, people with bad short-term memories might find a reason to justify its steep price.
What to know before reserving
The $200 reservation is separate from the roughly $20,000 full price. Voxel is expected to ship “sometime in 2028,” the report said, so buyers would wait at least a year or more for a unit.