AI aces bar exam but bombs as a butler: Why Samsung, LG keep delaying their homebots

From passing bar and medical licensing exams to solving intricate coding problems, advanced AI has racked up a string of achievements. But when that intelligence takes the form of humanoid “butler” robots, the promise often collapses

Samsung’s home robot Ballie, showcased at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. The model’s release has been pushed back indefinitely as humanoid robots capable of performing domestic chores move closer to reality. [SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS]

[NEWS ANALYSIS] From passing bar and medical licensing exams to solving intricate coding problems, advanced artificial intelligence has racked up a string of achievements. But when that intelligence takes the form of humanoid “butler” robots, the promise often collapses, in ways that are at times downright comical, as machines frequently struggle with tasks humans consider simple and intuitive.

Against the backdrop of disappointing performances by early household robots, Korean conglomerates such as Samsung and LG are scrambling to reassess their home-robot strategies. As a result, Samsung's rolling robot Ballie and LG's two-wheeled Q9 model, which drew significant attention at this year's CES, are expected to be absent from the upcoming CES in January 2026.

These robots bore little resemblance to what consumers now envision as a home robot: knee-high, wheeled devices that trail behind their owners, serving as monitoring companions rather than performing hands-on household labor. Using multimodal sensors, these robots roam through homes, and are able to assess indoor environments as well as control appliances.

Samsung’s home robot Ballie [SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS]

LG Electronics' self-Driving AI home hub Q9 [EPA/YONHAP]

It is now widely acknowledged that Samsung’s Ballie and LG’s Q9 will miss their previously promised release dates, both of which were supposed to be within this year. Neither device appeared at the IFA tech fair this September, and new timelines are still unclear.

Samsung had initially targeted a May–June launch for Ballie this year, but at IFA 2025, Yong Seok-woo, head of Samsung’s Visual Display division, said the company is conducting “extensive field tests and making improvements” ahead of a rescheduled release. Meanwhile, LG’s home appliance and air solution chief Ryu Jae-cheol said the company is working to evolve the Q9 into a model capable of performing physical actions.

Home is the battleground Even beyond Korea, home robots remain a difficult product to commercialize. Just last week, 1X Technologies, a California-based robotics firm, announced that it would supply 10,000 units of its humanoid robot Neo that was originally designed for domestic use, to be converted for usage in factories for companies backed by EQT Ventures from 2026 to 2030.

Neo had initially been marketed as the first ready-to-ship consumer humanoid robot, carrying a hefty $20,000 price tag. Neo's consumer program is still ongoing, but the company is now taking a dual-track strategy for its robot in response to hurdles such as a high cost that would naturally limit wider market adoption, as well as the unpredictable nature of home environments compared to organized rows of factory lines.

“Our homes are unstructured, dynamic environments, unlike the tidy, repetitive setting of a factory floor,” noted xmaquina, a robotics-focused independent outlet on analysis on home robot adoption difficulty. “No two living rooms or kitchens are exactly the same, and people use objects in endlessly varied ways. On top of this, humans in factories are way more predictable than kids in homes. This an additional complexity that makes home robotics so much more challenging than industrial robotics.”

A promotional image of 1X Technologies' Neo robot for domestic use [1X TECHNOLOGIES]

Home robots require data at an even greater scale than factory uses, as every home and task is different, the analysis explained. To be safely deployed, robots must autonomously learn to prepare for and respond to a wide range of scenarios, while also fluently interpreting human complexities such as social norms and personal preferences.

Although early previews of Neo that went viral on YouTube show a robot with a strikingly humanlike appearance. However, its movements still appear clunky and insufficiently refined to manage the complexity of everyday household tasks.

Privacy concerns also linger. Many countries lack clear regulations governing how visual data collected inside private homes by robots’ onboard cameras should be stored, used or protected, leaving a significant legal gray area.

Unitree’s G1 robot performs poorly on household chores in a series of tests given by a popular YouTuber Cody Detwiler [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The challenges of applying humanoids to domestic settings were vividly illustrated by China’s Unitree Robotics. A video that spread rapidly online was by popular YouTuber Cody Detwiler, which featured Unitree’s G1 robot struggling disastrously with routine household tasks — failing to properly handle a frying pan, spilling food across the kitchen floor and even slipping on the mess it created.

So, what’s next? Despite difficulties, the household robots market is still believed to be quite viable: According to market tracker Mordor Intelligence, the consumer robotics market size is forecast to grow to $29.5 billion globally from 2025’s $11.3 billion, with an annual growth rate of 20 percent.

As of now, Samsung and LG are instead veering toward building smart home ecosystems and developing what is known as spatial intelligence. Each individual home appliance from refrigerators, washers, dryers and air purifiers can automatically be tailored to the preferred settings of each user. Multimodality is being adopted to smart home controllers so that users can freely command each of their home appliances under platforms such as SmartThings and ThinQ, while robot cleaners such as Samsung’s latest Bespoke Jet Bot act as home patrollers.

Rather than building new home robot technologies, the two companies are now pursuing the home robotics sector through merger and acquisition. Samsung became the largest shareholder of domestic startup Rainbow robotics with a 35 percent stake, while also investing in U.S. startup Skild AI in a push to secure next-generation robotics technologies.

LG, on the other hand, acquired U.S. service robot firm Bear Robotics in January and developed a new robotics lab under its home appliance & air solution division, implying renewed focus on household robots.

Han Jae-kwon, a professor of robotics engineering at Hanyang University and chief technology officer of the startup AeiRobot, urged domestic companies to embrace a stronger entrepreneurial spirit rather than cautiously testing the waters.

“In the U.S., top-tier companies are already jumping into this home robotics space, while Korean firms are still hesitating, trying to gauge whether it will work,” Han said. “Frankly, I think we should just take the leap. By focusing only on ventures that look guaranteed to succeed, we may be undermining our own chances. If we try and fail, at least we gain insight into why it didn’t work — and that learning is invaluable.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]