Humanoid Robots Are Here… and Embarrassingly Bad at Being Our Servants

The home robots that headlined past CES may already be on their way to the scrap heap. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Samsung’s famed Ballie home robot was effectively dead. The company offered a statement that the robot would “inform” how Samsung works with spatial awareness and smart home intelligence. The bot itself was nowhere to be found at CES 2026. Recent reports citing robot companies themselves question whether humanoid robots are the next big tech boondoggle. China, the one place that is definitely ahead of the rest of the world on robotics, officially cited a number of copycat companies making derivative, useless bots. The lingering question is whether any of the robots will be capable of doing anything useful. The technical work done on these devices is far more interesting than the bots’ practical capabilities. Judging by what we saw at CES 2026, bipedal robotics are nowhere near as capable as companies promise they will be. Hell, they don’t meet their limited promise today. The best home chore robots will continue to be your belligerent children. They won’t want to fold their clothes, but you can guarantee they will do it faster than any robot existing today.

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