Household robots are all anyone’s talking about – but will they catch on?

We might only be a month into 2026 but a key trend that’s standing out – for both good and bad reasons – is the emergence of household robots. Many of them were seen walking around CES 2026 which took place at the start of January, and they’re all anyone’s been talking about. However, I wish we weren’t – and here’s why.

As AI continues to take over the home, I guess it was only a matter of time before robots were introduced. There have been rumours for some time regarding LG launching a home robot, and earlier this year, we finally got to see its household robot in action.

As part of its ‘Zero Labour Home’ vision, LG has developed the LG CLOiD. Powered by AI, LG CLOiD uses AI and vision language models to do household chores. It features a head, torso, arms, hands and a wheeled base which allows it to move around, while the arms and hands can grab onto things.

In the head of the LG CLOiD is its ‘brain’ which is equipped with a chipset, sensors, speaker, display and cameras. This technology and voice-based generative AI are used for it to recognise objects, perform actions, talk to you and make facial expressions.

When LG CLOiD was displayed at CES, the reviews were mixed to say the least. LG states that CLOiD can take items out of the fridge, place trays in ovens and fold laundry, but the latter is where it had issues which were captured by attendees at the event. The videos showed LG CLOiD moving slowly, finding it hard to grab corners and messily folding clothes.

Another home robot that made its debut earlier this year was the SwitchBot onero H1. Another full-sized AI-powered robot like LG’s CLOiD, the SwitchBot onero H1 learns and adapts to its environment and your needs using OmniSense VLA. It also has a wheeled base, head, arms and torso, and is designed to open, organise, and hold and push items.

Again, attendee-captured videos saw the SwitchBot onero H1 in action picking up clothes, moving to the washing machine and loading laundry before closing the door. People noted that the SwitchBot onero H1 moves very slowly and takes around 2.5 minutes to complete tasks, and while these household robots are still in early stages of development, it does seem slowness is going to be a major issue.

The main purpose of home robots is to save you time by doing things for you, but judging from LG and SwitchBot’s robots, I’m not convinced it’s saving you much time at all. In my opinion, I’m way too impatient to wait for a home robot to fold my clothes, especially when it’ll probably take me half the time to just do it myself!

Of course, there are some areas I see home robots being helpful, mainly for people with disabilities or mobility issues. Tasks that involve moving around and picking things up can be hard for some, so a home robot can definitely take away this strain.

But – and this is a big but although it’s likely to be expected – I can’t imagine these household robots being cheap. LG and SwitchBot have kept quiet about pricing and availability for now, although SwitchBot did state that the onero H1 will be available to pre-order soon.

To put things into perspective, robot vacuum cleaners – a device which has been received well within the home – can get up to £1,000 / $1,000, so I can only guess how expensive full home robots will be. Of course, we’ll have to wait to see what the next stages are for household robots but I’m definitely not holding my breath for them.