Neuralink Patient #22 Steers a Matic Robot Vacuum With His Mind

Image: Matic Robots

Neuralink patient #22 Zach McManus, who lives with ALS, is steering a Matic home robot vacuum around his house with his thoughts, according to a verified Monday post from Matic Robots.

It comes a day after another ALS patient steered his wheelchair outdoors with the same kind of implant.

Matic’s clip shows the white floor robot rolling across McManus’s living-room carpet while he sits nearby in a powered chair. “Zach is controlling Matic with his mind,” the company wrote, tagging Elon Musk and Neuralink. “Neuralink patient #22 is using his thoughts to move Matic around his home.”

McManus, who posts as DeadManRolln on X, had already shared his own video in late October calling Matic the first robot vacuum controlled purely with thoughts. He later listed the vacuum among devices he can already run with the implant, alongside his laptop, phone, TV and Xbox controller, and said wheelchair driving was still ahead.

ALS gradually weakens the muscles people need to move, speak and eventually breathe. For patients who can no longer use their hands, chores like vacuuming usually mean asking someone else for help.

Controlling devices is the point of Neuralink’s N1 implant, which reads motor-intent signals from the brain and turns them into commands for phones, computers and other hardware. Public milestones this fall have centered on speech and mobility, including one ALS patient hitting 75 words a minute in week one and a 72-hour sprint that packed in weeks of speech progress.

Home robots are a newer target. Matic sells the vacuum-and-mop unit from $1,495 on its website, keeps maps on the device rather than in the cloud, and told followers on Monday it would love for more Neuralink patients to use Matic.

What home device would you want a Neuralink patient to drive next with their thoughts?