Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is. - TechCrunch
Hello Robot doesn’t promise that Stretch will have the complexity or capability of the humanoid robots that enamor the Valley, but its simpler design could make it more powerful.
Key takeaways
Humanoid robots are gaining momentum across multiple fronts as of June 2026. Investors are betting heavily on the sector, with Barclays forecasting a $200 billion market by 2035 and Wedbush’s Dan Ives suggesting it could eventually be worth trillions, while SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has called physical AI the next trillion‑dollar opportunity. Companies such as China’s Unitree Robotics are showcasing humanoids in public venues, and Chinese manufacturers now claim the capacity to build thousands of units annually, though analysts warn demand may lag supply. In the United States, corporate giants are accelerating development: OpenAI is expanding its robotics lab to create a humanoid platform, Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence to boost its AI models for humanoids, and Boston Dynamics—now owned by Hyundai—is planning to field tens of thousands of Atlas robots in factories by 2028. Tesla’s Optimus remains a high‑profile but opaque project, with CEO Elon Musk hinting that limited consumer sales could start by the end of 2027. Start‑ups are also moving toward commercial rollout; 1X Technologies began full‑scale production of its NEO humanoid in California, and Humanoid Ltd. announced a partnership with Bosch and Schaeffler to scale manufacturing. Meanwhile, industry analysts note that practical deployments are emerging in logistics, baggage handling, delivery and care, with early trials at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and Amazon’s last‑mile delivery prototypes. These developments collectively illustrate a rapid shift from laboratory prototypes to large‑scale production and market‑focused applications for humanoid robots.
Hello Robot doesn’t promise that Stretch will have the complexity or capability of the humanoid robots that enamor the Valley, but its simpler design could make it more powerful. Edsinger compares his company to Waymo, which became the leading purveyor of self-driving cars by focusing on safety first (although the money helped).
One leader in this field, 1X, was the subject of significant attention last year when it unveiled a humanoid robot, Neo, that people could buy to perform chores in their homes. The company says that it sold out of the 10,000 Neos it plans to build this year, but as of yet, none have actually been delivered. Tim Fernholz
Martinez, California, is about as far as you can get from Silicon Valley and still be in the San Francisco Bay Area. Perched on the northeast edge of the bay, the small city is home to Hello Robot, a startup that itself is about as far as one can get from the maximalist promises of its robotics rivals 45 miles south.
Hello Robot released the fourth iteration of its home assistance robot, Stretch, last month. And you might stretch to call it a humanoid robot. While Stretch boasts a vaguely human torso and sensor-studded head, its telescoping arm has a pair of pinchers, and it rides around on a heavy, omnidirectional wheeled base.
When Stretch’s batteries run down, lights around its “eyes” glow — “it looks angry,” Blaine Matulevich, an engineer at the company, jokes. Hello Robot, founded in 2017 by CEO Aaron Edsinger, a former director of robotics at Google, and CTO Charlie Kemp, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is not building a foundation model or promising to take over every job a human can do. Hello Robot developed Stretch to do something many other robots aren’t doing: Working in real homes, with real people, at a time when most are behind glass in laboratories.
This is vital. While the latest advances in artificial intelligence promise more capabilities for robots, there is a dearth of useful training data. And while simulation is improving, investors are increasingly focused on deployment.
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