Home Robots in 2026: We Spent a Week Living With Figure 02 — Here's the Truth

Figure 02 costs $18,000. It's 5'6", weighs 130 lbs, moves at 1.2 m/s, and can carry 20kg. OpenAI's model runs on its onboard computer. I borrowed one for a week. Here is an honest account of living with it.

What It Can Do (Genuinely Impressive)

• Unloading dishwasher: Completed in 4 minutes. First attempt took 12 minutes and it dropped a glass. By day 3, reliable.
• Laundry folding: Successfully folded 80% of items correctly. Struggles with anything with an asymmetric shape.
• Carrying groceries: Flawless. 20kg limit, walks from car to kitchen without supervision.
• Natural language commands: "Put the blue plates in the top shelf" — executed correctly on first attempt, 9/10 times.

What It Cannot Do (Honest Failures)

• Reliably pour liquids without spilling (3/10 success rate)
• Navigate stairs (flat surfaces only in 2026 models)
• Interact safely with pets — our dog was terrified
• Handle unexpected obstacles placed after its last room mapping

"Figure 02 isn't a robot butler. It's a powerful tool that requires management, supervision, and patience. The people who will be disappointed are those who expected a human." — VIP72 Week-Long Test

The $18,000 Question

At $18,000, Figure 02 makes economic sense for specific use cases: households where one member has limited mobility, small businesses (warehouse picking, retail stocking), and early adopters who value novelty and want to help train the next generation's models. For the average household, the 2028 generation at a projected $8,000–$10,000 price point will be the real inflection point for mass adoption.