67 ms·

The Rabbit R1 is probably running Android and is powered by an Android app

260 points by gmjosack 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Rabbit R1: Barely Reviewable [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40206063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40206063
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  I Witnessed the Future of AI, and It's a Broken Toy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40205666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40205666
dmitrygr 2y ago
> Rabbit has reached out to Android Authority with a statement from its founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu. The statement argues that the R1’s interface is not an app Followed by a demo of someone copying the APK and the whole thing more or less working... I think Lyu forgot that the statement was for androidauthority.com (where people who understand android hang out) and not for his 80-year-old-uncle...
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  > Followed by a demo of someone copying the APK and the whole thing more or less working... Isn't this how Android works though? The interface you boot into is an APK that has some more entitlements and hits some APIs. Like how should they have made it?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
constantlm 2y ago
> "rabbit r1 is not an Android app. We are aware there are some unofficial rabbit OS app/website emulators out there." Using Android for this makes a ton of sense. Lying about it does not.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Hardware is … hard. I remember a post, here, some time ago, that was an explanation about why someone wasn’t going to be making a webcam, even though they had a great idea. The post talked about all the various details and hurdles, involved in sourcing parts, making, promoting, delivering, and supporting the product. It basically said it wasn’t worth it. Backing a hardware project requires substantially deeper pockets than an app. Sometimes, a good hardware wrapper could make all the difference, but it’s a really big deal.
jpgvm 2y ago
My first instinct is to say "of course" my second instinct is to ask "who cares?". Is it relevant whatsoever? Is the product relevant whatsoever? The answer to both seems categorically no at this point. I really don't understand why this device is getting attention while hundreds of hardware products launched each year go mostly unnoticed. What am I missing here?
- Cyphase 2y ago
  > What am I missing here? AI.
- dorkwood 2y ago
  It's got AI in it.
linmob 2y ago
This is unsurprising - of course it runs AOSP, what else would you run on a MediaTek MT6765? Windows CE? Defintely not mainline Linux, thanks to PowerVR graphics[1] - the demo looked to smooth for 'no GPU driver'. Ever since I saw that hardware, I've been wondering if it could be repurposed as a tiny phone with smart features, or as a 'connected' MP3 player. Pity it does not have a headphone jack. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MediaTek_MT6765 https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MediaTek_MT6765
junon 2y ago
As someone building an OS from scratch, of course it's not a custom OS. That'd be too large an overhead to support all the things android gives you out of the box. That being said, their marketing terminology of "a revolutionary AI-based OS" is what's more problematic. If they had just mentioned it was an android platform none of this would have been shocking to anyone. There's never been a company I've personally seen that is both truly innovative that also uses the term "operating system" to mean something other than an actual operating system.
rvz 2y ago
You should not be surprised. If you look at most of the jobs in the careers page for example [0], they mention the need for "Experience with framework-level customization of AOSP" and that the app is in "Flutter". So this was immediately obvious that it was running Android. It is just that this was a nice and perfectly packaged scam, but not as expensive scam like the Humane AI Pin. and yes. Humane is also using Android for their AI Pin devices. Unsurprisingly. [1] [0] https://boards.greenhouse.io/rabbit/jobs/4229430007 https://boards.greenhouse.io/rabbit/jobs/4229430007 [1] https://humane.com/jobs/5045093004 https://humane.com/jobs/5045093004
- jsheard 2y ago
  The kind of SoC that you would put into something like this often only has official support for Android, too. If you're making any kind of mobile thing then Android is almost certainly the path of least resistance nowadays. The Playstation Portal is another good example, it's a single-purpose device just for streaming games from a PS5 but it runs full blown Android, locked down so you can't use it for anything else.
- cubefox 2y ago
  Using Android doesn't make it a scam.
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    The scam is they are selling it as anything other than "phone with fewer features"
    - oivey 2y ago
      That’s not a scam, either. They’re not being dishonest about what the hardware really is. They’re probably at least being unrealistically optimistic about the future software, though.
      - iancmceachern 2y ago
        This review was interesting: https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=-SZ1xUpj5-KE7xWD https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=-SZ1xUpj5-KE7xWD
rjrogerto 2y ago
As others have commented - this is unsurprising - and makes a lot of sense from a technical perspective. Don't see this as scammy at all. And as for the product - the main qualm seems to be the lack of utility vs cost - which again does not seem scammy to me.
- NotYourLawyer 2y ago
  The scam is that the hardware is unnecessary, expensive, and strictly worse than just using your phone.
  - danparsonson 2y ago
    That doesn't make it a scam though, just a waste of money. A scam would be something like, you order it and what turns up is a photo of the device with a QR code on the back linking to a download for the app.
    - serf 2y ago
      the line isn't that clear cut. broken promises that create a sale could certainly be construed as 'scammy'.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - danparsonson 2y ago
        I don't know too much about this product - did they promise not to run it on Android?
    - bluSCALE4 2y ago
      The scam is that it uses Playwright and no LLM actually exists.
  - asadm 2y ago
    Market isn't an optimization problem. Market can decide what is necessary or isn't. I would pick this up for $200 if the models were running locally.
elif 2y ago
This is a cursory take based upon superficial reckoning. The apps already exist, and they already suck, precisely because of the capabilities that phones have. AI apps, particularly voice assistants, are designed to give you text and data via a screen. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a perfectly simple question and my android assistant responded, infuriatingly, "here's what I found on the web" or the dreaded "please unlock your phone" prompt when it relates to anything remotely personal. If I wanted a web browser experience or to find the answer on my own, or to follow up with focusing my attention and interacting with a digital keyboard, I would have! The rabbit interaction is for a purely responsive 2024 AI experience, which doesn't try to shovel me back to the 90's at earliest convenience.
shwoopdiwoop 2y ago
I ordered one since it cost exactly as much as a 1 year stand-alone perplexity license that it comes with. I don’t know how they can possibly make money with this but i’m looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I really like the teenage engineering vibes of it.
- echelon 2y ago
  > i’m looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I really like the teenage engineering vibes of it. I want more companies to try hardware! To quote the title, > a thing that should just be an app, is just an Android app Except the company doesn't own the hardware for distribution by being an Android app! People want developers to be subservient and taxed forever, as if Google and Apple own all of non-desktop computing. It's an unfortunate place we've arrived at. We need many more hardware options. The cellphone duopoly is harming and taxing innovation.
  - elif 2y ago
    Yeah Google not allowing 3rd party apps to be used as the voice assistant is 100% reason enough to release as hardware. I don't want to unlock my phone and type and click buttons just to ask about a task I'm working on.
    - StackRanker3000 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40225838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40225838 ”Android lets you choose which digital assistant app to use. Settings > Apps > Default apps > Digital assistant app. Stock Android will have this preconfigured to Google Assistant, but it's designed to be swappable.”
    - dagmx 2y ago
      How does Bixby work then? My point being, they’re already releasing an Android device with cellular. Why not make it a bespoke Android phone and/or partner with someone like One Plus to be a differentiator? The number of people who’d carry two devices around is vanishingly small when the use cases all can happen on their phone anyway.
zameermfm 2y ago
"AI in a Box" devices doesn't even come closer to the Apps we have today and we already carry our phones everywhere. iOS/Android and Apps go through heavy optimization, atleast by the OS to make sure battery life is managed well. I really cannot fathom the utility, position of these devices and why would people buy them except for early adopters. Accessibility, though is a big use case, I believe these newer devices which tries to live on their own will do extremely well for people with impaired/lost vision and Humane AI pin can double down real-time translations as well, because as having a conversation with a foreigner in their language with the phone is tad bit unorthodox. So I guess all depends on how next evolution of these devices are going to be, and cannot see it's replacing the mobile anytime soon. "More devices" is never the answer.
- drewda 2y ago
  FWIW, there already are lots of purpose built devices for accessibility for blind and visually impaired individuals: https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technolog...
amanzi 2y ago
I actually like the idea of a small, stand-alone gadget like this. The battery life should definitely be better - if a decent phone can last a day or two, I'd expect a device like this to be able to last much longer than that. But I can't see how they can sell this device without a monthly subscription? Even if you don't make many AI queries, you're still consuming resources on their "rabbithole" web services. If the company behind Rabbit closes down, I'm guessing the devices will become near-useless? Although, knowing that it runs on Android gives hope for hackers to extend and modify the devices.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Re the battery: a new software update came out today that they claim will improve battery life 5x. I don't know if that'll pan out or not; that's what their notes said.
- zachthewf 2y ago
  GPT3.5-level models are now insanely cheap: $1 buys you something like a Moby Dick's worth of text. STT and TTS models are getting cheaper too. I'm guessing that they are betting usage over the lifetime of the device (maybe 2 years tops?) amortizes out to a decent margin without a subscription. It's also a lot easier to stomach a beautiful shiny teenage engineering toy that doesn't do much if you don't have to pay every month.
a-dub 2y ago
the same is true of oculus quest devices. the choice of under the hood operating system really only matters to developers, otherwise why wouldn't you build on aosp? the real value is in how it functions in the life of the users. if they put a new llm based shell on top and built a new app ecosystem for it that makes users happy, then they've done something useful!
- Gigachad 2y ago
  The hardware of the quest provides significant functionality. What did the hardware on the R1 provide that isn’t on a phone already?
  - sniggers 2y ago
    It's cool. Would not have been as cool as an app
kstrauser 2y ago
That makes me feel better about the whole project. If they were wasting their time developing a new OS from scratch instead of working on the programs running on it, I'd think they're nuts. I bought an R1 during the first pre-order and it arrived a couple days ago. In it's current form, it's not the AI from the movie "Her" that's going to manage your life for you. It's neat. It's a cool little toy that does interesting things and has potential. It definitely needs work: before today's software update, I couldn't type all the ASCII characters in my home's Wi-Fi password. I still like playing with it and I hope it improves.
- samspenc 2y ago
  Yeah, I would actually expect most hardware like this to be running on some open-source OS, either Android (AOSP), Linux or some variant. I mean, even the hardware that Meta and Amazon produce are built on top of Android / Linux variants, so I would be surprised if smaller players were writing their own custom OS these days.
  - whywhywhywhy 2y ago
    > either Android (AOSP), Linux or some variant If it's a portable device with connectivity and a battery Android is the only choice if you want to ship it on any reasonable timeline. Even going a Linux route you'll burn months just getting power management and wifi/cellular working to an acceptable (not even great) level, so much struggle with poor to no driver support. I'd love it if there was a better Linux solution because Android certainly isn't without some pitfalls but from my experience Android is the only viable way to ship a device like this today, not even Linux is a viable option.
  - wmf 2y ago
    It sounds like they're using a phone SoC and generally those chips only come with Android drivers anyway.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    Anything else would also be completely insane. Usually your two options are Android or yocto depending on how custom you want your system to be and whether you want to rather write an android app. There is nothing worthy of criticism in the fact they choose android as a base.
nbzso 2y ago
Too much VC money into a gazillion startups without proper management. What can go wrong? This is the result of tech cultism and lack of proper production standards. Design Thinking is like some form of forbidden knowledge today. So much “disruption” with no clear product use case. AI is the new dotcom boom. 190 percent hype. 10 percent actual implementation. The startups have expectation to capitalize on testing with early adopters and naive consumers. The big companies fake their demos for likes and stock prices. What a conundrum. We need people with real skills and clear vision. We need Skunk Works team quality to achieve something of substance.
- yinser 2y ago
  Building a physical product, launching, getting feedback. They’re in the arena and regardless of how bad the initial offering is it’s more than sitting on the sidelines demanding Skunk Works from others.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    So in your world the idea is to launch alpha quality products as early as possible. Ovens that leak gas, cars where the wheel comes off, games where you only get 10 minutes in etc. Personally, I prefer how the world actually works where you have user testing sessions, beta programs, quality management etc.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Nobody’s going to die if their Rabbit can’t connect to Spotify on the first try. It’s a nice early release that was very clear about being an early release.
    - yinser 2y ago
      Consumer software is the farthest thing from the regulation of the products you just mentioned. Is there a gun to your head to buy a Rabbit?
  - nbzso 2y ago
    Jerk knee reactions. Typical for HN from 2015 onwards. There was a time when here knowledge and experience did not hinder the new ideas at all. My entire career was a result of this process in early 2008. Today we live in inflated VC realm of promises, big statements and low delivery. It is not about demanding on a side lines. Some of us still produce quality by following the proven methodology from the past. To push to market R&D projects and demand applause is pathetic. And no. There is no place for PC in this. It is about time to wake up from the AI Utopia. And the cleansing process is going on as we speak. Corporations reached the limitation of participation trophies and DEI agenda.
TrevorFSmith 2y ago
Maybe they don't want to pay Apple and Google a third of their revenue for the privilege of shipping software in the app stores.
- threeseed 2y ago
  No instead they will need to pay far more for Marketing and PR. And end up producing their own custom interface which has been universally panned.
the_real_cher 2y ago
> Unfortunately for them, both products launched half-baked A.I. itself is amazing... but still kind of half baked
leeeeeepw 2y ago
[dead]
twobitshifter 2y ago
If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint? I am surprised by the poor battery life if it’s running Android and using push to talk. They need to do something about that rabbit animation because that’s where this thing spends most of its time.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  >If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint? No, in that case they would deserve to be called incompetent.
garrisonj 2y ago
Are people surprised that the app is written in code that can run on a different computer? Of course it can. It would be much weirder to learn they built an entire tech stack specifically for the device and that it was technically impossible to port it.
over_bridge 2y ago
I'm interested in a device like this for my sight impaired older relatives. They struggle with smartphones and would benefit from a single purpose device with big obvious UI elements. Not sure they are the target demographic for the R1 but I can see v3 (R3?) being pretty useful. Maybe sell a case that looks like a tea cosy and ditch the orange first though
nxicvyvy 2y ago
[flagged]
paxys 2y ago
This entire device category is dead the second Apple & Google release their own AI assistants baked into the mobile OS.
- cogman10 2y ago
  They already have. Apple calls theirs "siri". The dumb part here is a company getting attention for making a virtual assistant just because they added "AI".
  - Torn 2y ago
    Siri is nowhere near an AI assistant or even a decent AI query bot. It mostly does simple commands and for the rest kicks you to web search results. Apple surely understand the opportunity here, maybe their view is LLMs are just too variable / hallucinate too much to go all-in on it?
    - emehex 2y ago
      WWDC is in June. Lots of us are expecting better LLM integration and SDKs to be released then...
  - thih9 2y ago
    Siri is no longer seen as an AI assistant, at least not with the post-chatgpt meaning of the word 'AI'.
    - whoitwas 2y ago
      Maybe Siri isn't. I'm not even sure I've ever seen anyone use it successfully. I'm pretty sure Google's assistant was built using ML.
    - VelesDude 2y ago
      Yep, the meaning AI of is always changing. Search used to be considered AI because it could interpret human input.
    - 2y ago
raverbashing 2y ago
I'm surprised people are surprised this Rabbit thing is running Android 99.9% of the HW projects that have a modestly complex display/networking need run on Android. It's a no-brainer. OEM the HW from China, even if moderately custom and they can get you something for cheap.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  I don't think people (well outside of some clickbait headlines) are surprised it is running Android. But more that it is an app. Personally I figured it was running Android but likely a heavily modified fork. Especially after how many times they seem to have buckled down on it not being possible as just an app. (Unless I am misunderstanding and it is indeed a fork and not just an App? ).
  - rvnx 2y ago
    There is no need to get anything more complex than needed; the Rabbit R1 is just an Android phone, pre-installed with only one app, with an action button bound, and that's it.
    - nerdjon 2y ago
      I agree to a point, there is no reason to over complicate it. But if you are going to make claims about how its impossible to be an app, maybe you should be making sure that it isnt just an app and you are going down the route of it being its own distro. I am not saying it should have been its own android distro, but it was my expectation given how they were talking about it. I mean did they really not expect people to dig into it once it was in the wild and find their exaggeration (lies)?
- paxys 2y ago
  The surprising part isn't that the device is running Android OS, but that the whole thing is a single Android app.
  - smith7018 2y ago
aeurielesn 2y ago
To be honest, I still don't understand the appeal of this product. I've always got a "one-time quick-cash hustle" video out of it and I can't trust it.
- Klonoar 2y ago
  Considering their prior bit was NFTs, I wouldn’t feel too surprised by that feeling.
- nicklecompte 2y ago
  I would never purchase this myself, but it seems most people are buying it as a toy or trinket, not as a productivity device. I can't judge them too much considering how much actual grownup money I've spent on Legos...
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    In 20 years your Legos will still function just fine, can be re-used, can be passed down to new kids or new owners, can be integrated in other things etc... In 5 years this thing will be poisoning some small trash picking child in Africa somewhere.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- shmatt 2y ago
  I can't think of a single hyped up pre-order that worked out. Either * Everyone else can buy it when the pre orders are delivered * Due to monetary constraints, regular orders are actually shipped before pre-orders * The device is nothing like it was promised * The device doesn't exist The intentions are good (funding without VCs) but I rather the VCs lose money than consumers
- rideontime 2y ago
  s/video/vibe?
tb1989 2y ago
Doesn't surprise me. In my opinion, many companies try to achieve outrageous premiums by taking the route of teen engineering (the originator of hype). In addition to rabbit, there is also a series of nothing products. This doesn't convince the tech fetishists. In fact, I think te's contribution to music is very limited, even harmful, especially when I see the latest Yamaha even imitating te, which feels a bit funny and ridiculous. We need real innovation and democratic pricing. By the way, if you care, you can learn about the history of rabbit’s founder. Let's just say, in certain circles, this is a recognized liar. So I’m not surprised at all when it was said a few days ago that Rabbit stole everyone’s passwords.
- rideontime 2y ago
  Care to elaborate, for the curious? A quick google on Jesse Lyu doesn't turn up much besides his own hype. Although he does appear to at least be obfuscating the truth, failing to admit that the only reason the "bootleg APK" isn't working is because of an IMEI whitelist. Update: They've barely tightened up, now the only missing piece is the OS build fingerprint. https://twitter.com/uwukko/status/1785626783900930447/ https://twitter.com/uwukko/status/1785626783900930447/
- datpiff 2y ago
  I don't like most of TE's output but the OP-1 is definitely innovative.
  - tb1989 2y ago
    as innovative as rabbit r1
  - tb1989 2y ago
    Apparently, TE knows this Rabbit person's background as we are talking about millions dollar business. TE's values here are questionable when they decide to go with this guy. As for OP1, packaging a tape effect when it can't produce good sound quality is a fraud. Sampling from FM? Check Klaus Schulze.. Music startups can certainly innovate, such as Roli (Seaboard and Rise), moog. make noise. Open source monome. and, to my sorrow, Émilie Gillet (Mutable Instruments). TE's innovation in music itself is far inferior to them. If you praise te, I think it is unfair to other people who are obsessed with technological innovation. I have always felt that TE is a electronics company with no innovation in hardcore technology. The appearance and packaging are different from previous ones, but there is not enough practical integration. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. If you disagree, you can write down your opinion. Thank you.
jeroenhd 2y ago
I haven't heard anything about the Rabbit R1, what is it supposed to be? Based on the video it looks like this is just Google Assistant except not by Google, what makes it different from a normal phone?
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  for one, its not a phone (it cant make calls) https://www.rabbit.tech/ https://www.rabbit.tech/
- rideontime 2y ago
  It also doubles as a low-range space heater.
- woleium 2y ago
  google wont allow alternative voice assistants on android, so they had little choice.
  - dmitrygr 2y ago
    What are you talking about? "Assistant App" is a setting in the settings app where any assistant can be enabled. API is documented in the SDK docs
  - alphabetting 2y ago
    ?? Bixby and Alexa are on Android.
    - jsheard 2y ago
      And it's pluggable at the system level so the global shortcuts that default to Google Assistant can be made to point to a third party provider instead.
      - woleium 2y ago
        Huh, now you mention it, that does sound correct. i wonder what i was reading that said there was some limitation..
doix 2y ago
So as far as I can tell, this is a pay $200 once and use AI infinitely device. Are the keys inside the APK? What's stopping someone just using these guys OpenAI (or whatever they use) service for free?
- paxys 2y ago
  I can guarantee that somewhere in the terms and conditions there's a buried line that says that they are not obligated to operate the AI features for free forever.
- turtlebits 2y ago
  As a rushed/unfinished product, I'd be highly skeptical if there was any form of security. Might get implemented once someone abuses it.
  - s3r3nity 2y ago
    > As a rushed/unfinished product What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished? I agree with the sentiment that it's a _bad_ product with _bad_ choices and _bad_ strategy. It was likely caused by shitty ZIRP-era "MVP product without the 'viable'" mentality, rather than caused by rushing an unfinished product.
    - dmitrygr 2y ago
      > What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished? The very feel of every demo and the product itself
rfwhyte 2y ago
I'm 100% convinced the Rabbit R1 and the Humane Pin are in fact not AI "Assistants" but rather "AI" spying / user data harvesting devices. This is the reason their batteries deplete so fast. They're constantly sending your data back to some shady company to be sold to the highest bidder and / or given to foreign governments.
- kajecounterhack 2y ago
  Humane actually worked really hard to do security the right way fwiw. They have to send your queries to OpenAI etc but they aren't straight up harvesting passwords. They probably save your queries and pictures to train their models but what else would you expect. Rabbit on the other hand...don't give them your passwords! Saying this as someone who won't waste money on the Humane pin but ordered an R1 for fun. Wish Humane got the price point (and a lot of other things) right. Like focusing on device latency and integrating Spotify instead of trying to boil the ocean and integrating only Tidal.
lawgimenez 2y ago
Man, that keynote vibe is creepy.
padjo 2y ago
Isn’t the action engine or whatever they’re calling it just a load of playwright scripts? Or was that some other hokey AI device?
dang 2y ago
Related: https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837 https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837 (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40223247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40223247, but we merged that thread hither)
wg0 2y ago
Basic appeal is about form factor. Underlying OS is an Implementation detail. It could very well be running Minix or BSD. And towards that end, it seems these devices are underpowered, drain batteries faster, require an Internet trip to do anything and that anything could often easily be hallucinations. And that's where these AI devices don't seem to have a chance to ever even a dedicated user base.
- joshl32532 2y ago
  > Basic appeal is about form factor. It would be much more appealing to me as a watch. Since it can at least tell time, and I don't need to carry it around in my pocket, which I'm already carrying a phone and a wallet. I'll need a 3rd pocket for this? Much quicker to access for quick question, take voice notes too.
zitterbewegung 2y ago
This product feels like it is ahead of its time. Local processing will be readily available eventually. Better solutions for display of information and ingest of local data.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Local processing will also be available on your phone. A separate device for this makes no sense in any universe.
999900000999 2y ago
All this thing does is send off an API request to chat GPT or something else like it. As is you can give chat GPT an image and it'll read it for you, and interpret it or whatnot. You can just use Chat GPT on your phone and get 90% of the same experience. But then it's a matter of branding. To some it's cooler to use a toy like this. Sorta like how Beats headphones are often beaten by headphones costing a 1/3rd. Edit: At 200$ I'm not mad, it's ultimately a toy. Much better than the AI pin costing 700$ + 25$ a month.
- wmf 2y ago
  You're forgetting the app automation features (that currently don't work well).
  - marcinzm 2y ago
    Nothing about those features is specific to this device. OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built in phone integration. In fact those companies have more data, more compute, more experience and more end users which matters a lot for AI. And most importantly, OpenAI/Google/Apple can basically get app developers to add any missing details into their apps. Rabbit can't.
    - sniggers 2y ago
      >OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built in phone integration Have they done so or described any upcoming plans to do so? Rabbit is doing it now. Man this site is so anti-hacker it's insane. Probably because it's 90% big tech employees that are actively hurt by startups shaking things up. Should be renamed
      - marcinzm 2y ago
        > Rabbit is doing it now. You mean Perplexity, Anthropic, and OpenAI are doing so now. Rabbit is just using their models. Also, Startups are not hackers.
      - 2y ago
BoiledCabbage 2y ago
It sounds like this product isn't where it should be, and likely shipped too early. That said long term I want them or others to succeed. The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a world where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting mobile AI products. As any phone OS integrated Apple AI or Google AI will beat out any shipped apps store AI app long term. If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best.
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  > If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best. The only real allure of a separate device, for me, is isolating the bot from my data. I don't want it reading my emails and notifications and who knows what else. I suppose you could also market this for kids but they didn't go that route.
  - cowsup 2y ago
    Marketing it to children means you have to start worrying about COPPA (if in the US, where Rabbit is HQ'd) or similar legislation elsewhere. An AI device that accepts voice input and is supposed to learn and adapt to your use-case is at ends with laws that say you cannot collect any information from children — not even an email address or username.
  - outlore 2y ago
    That is my thought as well. But then, wouldn't it be better to get a separate cheap phone and install ChatGPT or Claude on it? Purely from a hardware perspective, a phone has all the sensors, chips etc needed for AI applications, so I'm puzzled why Humane and Rabbit thought that a standalone device was a better idea.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Their product doesn’t make any sense besides as an app. No one is going to carry a separate device around when your smartphone can do everything it can better. The chatGPT app on the iPhone already does everything the rabbit does better. They offer nothing.
frappuccino_o 2y ago
Running android is actually a good decision. We should celebrate it rather than scold Rabbit's founders. Creating OS is hard. Selling smart and intriguing devices for $200 is also hard. They had to pick one.
- RIMR 2y ago
  The issue is that Rabbit's founders marketed the R1 device as having abilities that surpass that of your smartphone. They sold the device as if it itself actually does something useful that your existing devices can't. But now we can see that it is just a weird shaped Android phone hard-coded to only run one app. It shatters the illusion that the R1 hardware was worth the $200 price tag, as the software under-the-hood could be equally if not more functional if it were just distributed as an app instead of as a piece of hardware. It would be different if the hardware had special sensors and processors that help maximize its functionality. There would be no issue for AOSP to be the base OS - in fact I would agree with your assessment that it was a good decision that should e celebrated. The hardware itself having novel capabilities would be the important aspect, not the OS they chose to build upon. Absent any special hardware functionality, it throws the entire Rabbit business model into question. They aren't charging licensing fees, and the service itself seems to be a lifetime subscription, so they aren't planning on making money selling software or SaaS services. The profit-making part of this business is selling hardware - and the hardware is just a worse version of the phone you already have... The software also seems barely useful. Pretty much just a bare-bones implementation of speech-to-text, GPT via REST API, and text-to-speech, with a handful of basic integrations. So once they've sold you the hardware, do they have any reason at all to improve the software or the service's offerings? If the R1 hardware can't do anything your phone can't, can they really compete with an app (even a paid app) that does the same thing on your almost certainly higher-spec'd smartphone? Given the founders' history of grifting, I am going to guess that the R1 hardware costs Rabbit <$50, and that the company will soon disappear, taking down any expensive cloud-based AI functionality with them, as soon as they feel they've sold enough units to line their pockets with the profits, and the R1 owners will be left with a brick.
starky 2y ago
I saw this news and my reaction was, "Of course it is, doing anything else would be stupid." But that on its own doesn't mean it could just be a phone app if the hardware adds something useful to the way the user interacts with it. For example, old Sony mirrorless cameras just ran Android under the hood but the specific hardware is what made those products, not the OS. As a hardware person, both the Rabbit R1 and the Humane pin are great examples of why I'm bored of today's technology in general. It feels like we have been caught in a cycle of minor spec increases and not much else (except maybe removing features/rights and shoehorning in a subscription) for the majority of technology we interact with day to day. Companies are desperately trying to come up with a new device class that will take off, but they all fail in the same way, nothing is solving real problems that people experience. Who wants to talk to something clipped on their shirt instead of pulling out the phone they already have? You don't see people in public talking to the assistant on their phone very often do you? Even if they worked well, these are likely destined to be niche products. It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products. I'm thinking unobtrusive AR, robotics, self-driving, etc. which are all going to take some time to mature to the point where they are practical.
- nkozyra 2y ago
  > It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products. Probably. I think we've hit a plateau with user interfaces for most connected gear. Sticking a physical scroll button on what is essentially a phone buys me nothing but annoyance. Phones just kind of do what we want and have an acceptable enough interface that the alternatives get in our way. The Humane Pin added the laser display but ... nobody wants it? This is starting to feel like sticking a spoiler on a phone and pretending it adds value. Maybe VCs are impressed by this stuff, I don't know. If there were a magic version of this it would have the model and processing onboard. That's obviously extremely cost prohibitive right now, but that's what it's going to take to create a real AI-powered assistant: * I need it to work without network latency. * I need multiple forms of input/output depending on the context. * I don't need Teenage Engineering's usual form-over-function design. I need the form to be out of my way most of the time. It's great that people are experimenting in this space. It's less great that people are getting multiple millions in funding and selling a phone and web service as an "AI device." This will hurt future development.

260 points by gmjosack 2y ago

Related: Rabbit R1: Barely Reviewable [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40206063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40206063

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
I Witnessed the Future of AI, and It's a Broken Toy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40205666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40205666

dmitrygr 2y ago

> Rabbit has reached out to Android Authority with a statement from its founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu. The statement argues that the R1’s interface is not an app Followed by a demo of someone copying the APK and the whole thing more or less working... I think Lyu forgot that the statement was for androidauthority.com (where people who understand android hang out) and not for his 80-year-old-uncle...

whywhywhywhy 2y ago
> Followed by a demo of someone copying the APK and the whole thing more or less working... Isn't this how Android works though? The interface you boot into is an APK that has some more entitlements and hits some APIs. Like how should they have made it?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

constantlm 2y ago

> "rabbit r1 is not an Android app. We are aware there are some unofficial rabbit OS app/website emulators out there." Using Android for this makes a ton of sense. Lying about it does not.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

Hardware is … hard. I remember a post, here, some time ago, that was an explanation about why someone wasn’t going to be making a webcam, even though they had a great idea. The post talked about all the various details and hurdles, involved in sourcing parts, making, promoting, delivering, and supporting the product. It basically said it wasn’t worth it. Backing a hardware project requires substantially deeper pockets than an app. Sometimes, a good hardware wrapper could make all the difference, but it’s a really big deal.

jpgvm 2y ago

My first instinct is to say "of course" my second instinct is to ask "who cares?". Is it relevant whatsoever? Is the product relevant whatsoever? The answer to both seems categorically no at this point. I really don't understand why this device is getting attention while hundreds of hardware products launched each year go mostly unnoticed. What am I missing here?

Cyphase 2y ago
> What am I missing here? AI.
dorkwood 2y ago
It's got AI in it.

linmob 2y ago

This is unsurprising - of course it runs AOSP, what else would you run on a MediaTek MT6765? Windows CE? Defintely not mainline Linux, thanks to PowerVR graphics[1] - the demo looked to smooth for 'no GPU driver'. Ever since I saw that hardware, I've been wondering if it could be repurposed as a tiny phone with smart features, or as a 'connected' MP3 player. Pity it does not have a headphone jack. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MediaTek_MT6765 https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MediaTek_MT6765

junon 2y ago

As someone building an OS from scratch, of course it's not a custom OS. That'd be too large an overhead to support all the things android gives you out of the box. That being said, their marketing terminology of "a revolutionary AI-based OS" is what's more problematic. If they had just mentioned it was an android platform none of this would have been shocking to anyone. There's never been a company I've personally seen that is both truly innovative that also uses the term "operating system" to mean something other than an actual operating system.

rvz 2y ago

You should not be surprised. If you look at most of the jobs in the careers page for example [0], they mention the need for "Experience with framework-level customization of AOSP" and that the app is in "Flutter". So this was immediately obvious that it was running Android. It is just that this was a nice and perfectly packaged scam, but not as expensive scam like the Humane AI Pin. and yes. Humane is also using Android for their AI Pin devices. Unsurprisingly. [1] [0] https://boards.greenhouse.io/rabbit/jobs/4229430007 https://boards.greenhouse.io/rabbit/jobs/4229430007 [1] https://humane.com/jobs/5045093004 https://humane.com/jobs/5045093004

jsheard 2y ago
The kind of SoC that you would put into something like this often only has official support for Android, too. If you're making any kind of mobile thing then Android is almost certainly the path of least resistance nowadays. The Playstation Portal is another good example, it's a single-purpose device just for streaming games from a PS5 but it runs full blown Android, locked down so you can't use it for anything else.
cubefox 2y ago
Using Android doesn't make it a scam.
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  The scam is they are selling it as anything other than "phone with fewer features"
  - oivey 2y ago
    That’s not a scam, either. They’re not being dishonest about what the hardware really is. They’re probably at least being unrealistically optimistic about the future software, though.
    - iancmceachern 2y ago
      This review was interesting: https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=-SZ1xUpj5-KE7xWD https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=-SZ1xUpj5-KE7xWD

rjrogerto 2y ago

As others have commented - this is unsurprising - and makes a lot of sense from a technical perspective. Don't see this as scammy at all. And as for the product - the main qualm seems to be the lack of utility vs cost - which again does not seem scammy to me.

NotYourLawyer 2y ago
The scam is that the hardware is unnecessary, expensive, and strictly worse than just using your phone.
- danparsonson 2y ago
  That doesn't make it a scam though, just a waste of money. A scam would be something like, you order it and what turns up is a photo of the device with a QR code on the back linking to a download for the app.
  - serf 2y ago
    the line isn't that clear cut. broken promises that create a sale could certainly be construed as 'scammy'.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - danparsonson 2y ago
      I don't know too much about this product - did they promise not to run it on Android?
  - bluSCALE4 2y ago
    The scam is that it uses Playwright and no LLM actually exists.
- asadm 2y ago
  Market isn't an optimization problem. Market can decide what is necessary or isn't. I would pick this up for $200 if the models were running locally.

elif 2y ago

This is a cursory take based upon superficial reckoning. The apps already exist, and they already suck, precisely because of the capabilities that phones have. AI apps, particularly voice assistants, are designed to give you text and data via a screen. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a perfectly simple question and my android assistant responded, infuriatingly, "here's what I found on the web" or the dreaded "please unlock your phone" prompt when it relates to anything remotely personal. If I wanted a web browser experience or to find the answer on my own, or to follow up with focusing my attention and interacting with a digital keyboard, I would have! The rabbit interaction is for a purely responsive 2024 AI experience, which doesn't try to shovel me back to the 90's at earliest convenience.

shwoopdiwoop 2y ago

I ordered one since it cost exactly as much as a 1 year stand-alone perplexity license that it comes with. I don’t know how they can possibly make money with this but i’m looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I really like the teenage engineering vibes of it.

echelon 2y ago
> i’m looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I really like the teenage engineering vibes of it. I want more companies to try hardware! To quote the title, > a thing that should just be an app, is just an Android app Except the company doesn't own the hardware for distribution by being an Android app! People want developers to be subservient and taxed forever, as if Google and Apple own all of non-desktop computing. It's an unfortunate place we've arrived at. We need many more hardware options. The cellphone duopoly is harming and taxing innovation.
- elif 2y ago
  Yeah Google not allowing 3rd party apps to be used as the voice assistant is 100% reason enough to release as hardware. I don't want to unlock my phone and type and click buttons just to ask about a task I'm working on.
  - StackRanker3000 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40225838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40225838 ”Android lets you choose which digital assistant app to use. Settings > Apps > Default apps > Digital assistant app. Stock Android will have this preconfigured to Google Assistant, but it's designed to be swappable.”
  - dagmx 2y ago
    How does Bixby work then? My point being, they’re already releasing an Android device with cellular. Why not make it a bespoke Android phone and/or partner with someone like One Plus to be a differentiator? The number of people who’d carry two devices around is vanishingly small when the use cases all can happen on their phone anyway.

zameermfm 2y ago

"AI in a Box" devices doesn't even come closer to the Apps we have today and we already carry our phones everywhere. iOS/Android and Apps go through heavy optimization, atleast by the OS to make sure battery life is managed well. I really cannot fathom the utility, position of these devices and why would people buy them except for early adopters. Accessibility, though is a big use case, I believe these newer devices which tries to live on their own will do extremely well for people with impaired/lost vision and Humane AI pin can double down real-time translations as well, because as having a conversation with a foreigner in their language with the phone is tad bit unorthodox. So I guess all depends on how next evolution of these devices are going to be, and cannot see it's replacing the mobile anytime soon. "More devices" is never the answer.

drewda 2y ago
FWIW, there already are lots of purpose built devices for accessibility for blind and visually impaired individuals: https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technolog...

amanzi 2y ago

I actually like the idea of a small, stand-alone gadget like this. The battery life should definitely be better - if a decent phone can last a day or two, I'd expect a device like this to be able to last much longer than that. But I can't see how they can sell this device without a monthly subscription? Even if you don't make many AI queries, you're still consuming resources on their "rabbithole" web services. If the company behind Rabbit closes down, I'm guessing the devices will become near-useless? Although, knowing that it runs on Android gives hope for hackers to extend and modify the devices.

kstrauser 2y ago
Re the battery: a new software update came out today that they claim will improve battery life 5x. I don't know if that'll pan out or not; that's what their notes said.
zachthewf 2y ago
GPT3.5-level models are now insanely cheap: $1 buys you something like a Moby Dick's worth of text. STT and TTS models are getting cheaper too. I'm guessing that they are betting usage over the lifetime of the device (maybe 2 years tops?) amortizes out to a decent margin without a subscription. It's also a lot easier to stomach a beautiful shiny teenage engineering toy that doesn't do much if you don't have to pay every month.

a-dub 2y ago

the same is true of oculus quest devices. the choice of under the hood operating system really only matters to developers, otherwise why wouldn't you build on aosp? the real value is in how it functions in the life of the users. if they put a new llm based shell on top and built a new app ecosystem for it that makes users happy, then they've done something useful!

Gigachad 2y ago
The hardware of the quest provides significant functionality. What did the hardware on the R1 provide that isn’t on a phone already?
- sniggers 2y ago
  It's cool. Would not have been as cool as an app

kstrauser 2y ago

That makes me feel better about the whole project. If they were wasting their time developing a new OS from scratch instead of working on the programs running on it, I'd think they're nuts. I bought an R1 during the first pre-order and it arrived a couple days ago. In it's current form, it's not the AI from the movie "Her" that's going to manage your life for you. It's neat. It's a cool little toy that does interesting things and has potential. It definitely needs work: before today's software update, I couldn't type all the ASCII characters in my home's Wi-Fi password. I still like playing with it and I hope it improves.

samspenc 2y ago
Yeah, I would actually expect most hardware like this to be running on some open-source OS, either Android (AOSP), Linux or some variant. I mean, even the hardware that Meta and Amazon produce are built on top of Android / Linux variants, so I would be surprised if smaller players were writing their own custom OS these days.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  > either Android (AOSP), Linux or some variant If it's a portable device with connectivity and a battery Android is the only choice if you want to ship it on any reasonable timeline. Even going a Linux route you'll burn months just getting power management and wifi/cellular working to an acceptable (not even great) level, so much struggle with poor to no driver support. I'd love it if there was a better Linux solution because Android certainly isn't without some pitfalls but from my experience Android is the only viable way to ship a device like this today, not even Linux is a viable option.
- wmf 2y ago
  It sounds like they're using a phone SoC and generally those chips only come with Android drivers anyway.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  Anything else would also be completely insane. Usually your two options are Android or yocto depending on how custom you want your system to be and whether you want to rather write an android app. There is nothing worthy of criticism in the fact they choose android as a base.

nbzso 2y ago

Too much VC money into a gazillion startups without proper management. What can go wrong? This is the result of tech cultism and lack of proper production standards. Design Thinking is like some form of forbidden knowledge today. So much “disruption” with no clear product use case. AI is the new dotcom boom. 190 percent hype. 10 percent actual implementation. The startups have expectation to capitalize on testing with early adopters and naive consumers. The big companies fake their demos for likes and stock prices. What a conundrum. We need people with real skills and clear vision. We need Skunk Works team quality to achieve something of substance.

yinser 2y ago
Building a physical product, launching, getting feedback. They’re in the arena and regardless of how bad the initial offering is it’s more than sitting on the sidelines demanding Skunk Works from others.
- threeseed 2y ago
  So in your world the idea is to launch alpha quality products as early as possible. Ovens that leak gas, cars where the wheel comes off, games where you only get 10 minutes in etc. Personally, I prefer how the world actually works where you have user testing sessions, beta programs, quality management etc.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Nobody’s going to die if their Rabbit can’t connect to Spotify on the first try. It’s a nice early release that was very clear about being an early release.
  - yinser 2y ago
    Consumer software is the farthest thing from the regulation of the products you just mentioned. Is there a gun to your head to buy a Rabbit?
- nbzso 2y ago
  Jerk knee reactions. Typical for HN from 2015 onwards. There was a time when here knowledge and experience did not hinder the new ideas at all. My entire career was a result of this process in early 2008. Today we live in inflated VC realm of promises, big statements and low delivery. It is not about demanding on a side lines. Some of us still produce quality by following the proven methodology from the past. To push to market R&D projects and demand applause is pathetic. And no. There is no place for PC in this. It is about time to wake up from the AI Utopia. And the cleansing process is going on as we speak. Corporations reached the limitation of participation trophies and DEI agenda.

TrevorFSmith 2y ago

Maybe they don't want to pay Apple and Google a third of their revenue for the privilege of shipping software in the app stores.

threeseed 2y ago
No instead they will need to pay far more for Marketing and PR. And end up producing their own custom interface which has been universally panned.

the_real_cher 2y ago

> Unfortunately for them, both products launched half-baked A.I. itself is amazing... but still kind of half baked

leeeeeepw 2y ago

[dead]

twobitshifter 2y ago

If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint? I am surprised by the poor battery life if it’s running Android and using push to talk. They need to do something about that rabbit animation because that’s where this thing spends most of its time.

constantcrying 2y ago
>If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint? No, in that case they would deserve to be called incompetent.

garrisonj 2y ago

Are people surprised that the app is written in code that can run on a different computer? Of course it can. It would be much weirder to learn they built an entire tech stack specifically for the device and that it was technically impossible to port it.

over_bridge 2y ago

I'm interested in a device like this for my sight impaired older relatives. They struggle with smartphones and would benefit from a single purpose device with big obvious UI elements. Not sure they are the target demographic for the R1 but I can see v3 (R3?) being pretty useful. Maybe sell a case that looks like a tea cosy and ditch the orange first though

nxicvyvy 2y ago

[flagged]

paxys 2y ago

This entire device category is dead the second Apple & Google release their own AI assistants baked into the mobile OS.

cogman10 2y ago
They already have. Apple calls theirs "siri". The dumb part here is a company getting attention for making a virtual assistant just because they added "AI".
- Torn 2y ago
  Siri is nowhere near an AI assistant or even a decent AI query bot. It mostly does simple commands and for the rest kicks you to web search results. Apple surely understand the opportunity here, maybe their view is LLMs are just too variable / hallucinate too much to go all-in on it?
  - emehex 2y ago
    WWDC is in June. Lots of us are expecting better LLM integration and SDKs to be released then...
- thih9 2y ago
  Siri is no longer seen as an AI assistant, at least not with the post-chatgpt meaning of the word 'AI'.
  - whoitwas 2y ago
    Maybe Siri isn't. I'm not even sure I've ever seen anyone use it successfully. I'm pretty sure Google's assistant was built using ML.
  - VelesDude 2y ago
    Yep, the meaning AI of is always changing. Search used to be considered AI because it could interpret human input.
  - 2y ago

raverbashing 2y ago

I'm surprised people are surprised this Rabbit thing is running Android 99.9% of the HW projects that have a modestly complex display/networking need run on Android. It's a no-brainer. OEM the HW from China, even if moderately custom and they can get you something for cheap.

nerdjon 2y ago
I don't think people (well outside of some clickbait headlines) are surprised it is running Android. But more that it is an app. Personally I figured it was running Android but likely a heavily modified fork. Especially after how many times they seem to have buckled down on it not being possible as just an app. (Unless I am misunderstanding and it is indeed a fork and not just an App? ).
- rvnx 2y ago
  There is no need to get anything more complex than needed; the Rabbit R1 is just an Android phone, pre-installed with only one app, with an action button bound, and that's it.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    I agree to a point, there is no reason to over complicate it. But if you are going to make claims about how its impossible to be an app, maybe you should be making sure that it isnt just an app and you are going down the route of it being its own distro. I am not saying it should have been its own android distro, but it was my expectation given how they were talking about it. I mean did they really not expect people to dig into it once it was in the wild and find their exaggeration (lies)?
paxys 2y ago
The surprising part isn't that the device is running Android OS, but that the whole thing is a single Android app.
- smith7018 2y ago

aeurielesn 2y ago

To be honest, I still don't understand the appeal of this product. I've always got a "one-time quick-cash hustle" video out of it and I can't trust it.

Klonoar 2y ago
Considering their prior bit was NFTs, I wouldn’t feel too surprised by that feeling.
nicklecompte 2y ago
I would never purchase this myself, but it seems most people are buying it as a toy or trinket, not as a productivity device. I can't judge them too much considering how much actual grownup money I've spent on Legos...
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  In 20 years your Legos will still function just fine, can be re-used, can be passed down to new kids or new owners, can be integrated in other things etc... In 5 years this thing will be poisoning some small trash picking child in Africa somewhere.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
shmatt 2y ago
I can't think of a single hyped up pre-order that worked out. Either * Everyone else can buy it when the pre orders are delivered * Due to monetary constraints, regular orders are actually shipped before pre-orders * The device is nothing like it was promised * The device doesn't exist The intentions are good (funding without VCs) but I rather the VCs lose money than consumers
rideontime 2y ago
s/video/vibe?

tb1989 2y ago

Doesn't surprise me. In my opinion, many companies try to achieve outrageous premiums by taking the route of teen engineering (the originator of hype). In addition to rabbit, there is also a series of nothing products. This doesn't convince the tech fetishists. In fact, I think te's contribution to music is very limited, even harmful, especially when I see the latest Yamaha even imitating te, which feels a bit funny and ridiculous. We need real innovation and democratic pricing. By the way, if you care, you can learn about the history of rabbit’s founder. Let's just say, in certain circles, this is a recognized liar. So I’m not surprised at all when it was said a few days ago that Rabbit stole everyone’s passwords.

rideontime 2y ago
Care to elaborate, for the curious? A quick google on Jesse Lyu doesn't turn up much besides his own hype. Although he does appear to at least be obfuscating the truth, failing to admit that the only reason the "bootleg APK" isn't working is because of an IMEI whitelist. Update: They've barely tightened up, now the only missing piece is the OS build fingerprint. https://twitter.com/uwukko/status/1785626783900930447/ https://twitter.com/uwukko/status/1785626783900930447/
datpiff 2y ago
I don't like most of TE's output but the OP-1 is definitely innovative.
- tb1989 2y ago
  as innovative as rabbit r1
- tb1989 2y ago
  Apparently, TE knows this Rabbit person's background as we are talking about millions dollar business. TE's values here are questionable when they decide to go with this guy. As for OP1, packaging a tape effect when it can't produce good sound quality is a fraud. Sampling from FM? Check Klaus Schulze.. Music startups can certainly innovate, such as Roli (Seaboard and Rise), moog. make noise. Open source monome. and, to my sorrow, Émilie Gillet (Mutable Instruments). TE's innovation in music itself is far inferior to them. If you praise te, I think it is unfair to other people who are obsessed with technological innovation. I have always felt that TE is a electronics company with no innovation in hardcore technology. The appearance and packaging are different from previous ones, but there is not enough practical integration. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. If you disagree, you can write down your opinion. Thank you.

jeroenhd 2y ago

I haven't heard anything about the Rabbit R1, what is it supposed to be? Based on the video it looks like this is just Google Assistant except not by Google, what makes it different from a normal phone?

nickthegreek 2y ago
for one, its not a phone (it cant make calls) https://www.rabbit.tech/ https://www.rabbit.tech/
rideontime 2y ago
It also doubles as a low-range space heater.
woleium 2y ago
google wont allow alternative voice assistants on android, so they had little choice.
- dmitrygr 2y ago
  What are you talking about? "Assistant App" is a setting in the settings app where any assistant can be enabled. API is documented in the SDK docs
- alphabetting 2y ago
  ?? Bixby and Alexa are on Android.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    And it's pluggable at the system level so the global shortcuts that default to Google Assistant can be made to point to a third party provider instead.
    - woleium 2y ago
      Huh, now you mention it, that does sound correct. i wonder what i was reading that said there was some limitation..

doix 2y ago

So as far as I can tell, this is a pay $200 once and use AI infinitely device. Are the keys inside the APK? What's stopping someone just using these guys OpenAI (or whatever they use) service for free?

paxys 2y ago
I can guarantee that somewhere in the terms and conditions there's a buried line that says that they are not obligated to operate the AI features for free forever.
turtlebits 2y ago
As a rushed/unfinished product, I'd be highly skeptical if there was any form of security. Might get implemented once someone abuses it.
- s3r3nity 2y ago
  > As a rushed/unfinished product What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished? I agree with the sentiment that it's a _bad_ product with _bad_ choices and _bad_ strategy. It was likely caused by shitty ZIRP-era "MVP product without the 'viable'" mentality, rather than caused by rushing an unfinished product.
  - dmitrygr 2y ago
    > What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished? The very feel of every demo and the product itself

rfwhyte 2y ago

I'm 100% convinced the Rabbit R1 and the Humane Pin are in fact not AI "Assistants" but rather "AI" spying / user data harvesting devices. This is the reason their batteries deplete so fast. They're constantly sending your data back to some shady company to be sold to the highest bidder and / or given to foreign governments.

kajecounterhack 2y ago
Humane actually worked really hard to do security the right way fwiw. They have to send your queries to OpenAI etc but they aren't straight up harvesting passwords. They probably save your queries and pictures to train their models but what else would you expect. Rabbit on the other hand...don't give them your passwords! Saying this as someone who won't waste money on the Humane pin but ordered an R1 for fun. Wish Humane got the price point (and a lot of other things) right. Like focusing on device latency and integrating Spotify instead of trying to boil the ocean and integrating only Tidal.

lawgimenez 2y ago

Man, that keynote vibe is creepy.

padjo 2y ago

Isn’t the action engine or whatever they’re calling it just a load of playwright scripts? Or was that some other hokey AI device?

dang 2y ago

Related: https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837 https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837 (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40223247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40223247, but we merged that thread hither)

wg0 2y ago

Basic appeal is about form factor. Underlying OS is an Implementation detail. It could very well be running Minix or BSD. And towards that end, it seems these devices are underpowered, drain batteries faster, require an Internet trip to do anything and that anything could often easily be hallucinations. And that's where these AI devices don't seem to have a chance to ever even a dedicated user base.

joshl32532 2y ago
> Basic appeal is about form factor. It would be much more appealing to me as a watch. Since it can at least tell time, and I don't need to carry it around in my pocket, which I'm already carrying a phone and a wallet. I'll need a 3rd pocket for this? Much quicker to access for quick question, take voice notes too.

zitterbewegung 2y ago

This product feels like it is ahead of its time. Local processing will be readily available eventually. Better solutions for display of information and ingest of local data.

dyauspitr 2y ago
Local processing will also be available on your phone. A separate device for this makes no sense in any universe.

999900000999 2y ago

All this thing does is send off an API request to chat GPT or something else like it. As is you can give chat GPT an image and it'll read it for you, and interpret it or whatnot. You can just use Chat GPT on your phone and get 90% of the same experience. But then it's a matter of branding. To some it's cooler to use a toy like this. Sorta like how Beats headphones are often beaten by headphones costing a 1/3rd. Edit: At 200$ I'm not mad, it's ultimately a toy. Much better than the AI pin costing 700$ + 25$ a month.

wmf 2y ago
You're forgetting the app automation features (that currently don't work well).
- marcinzm 2y ago
  Nothing about those features is specific to this device. OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built in phone integration. In fact those companies have more data, more compute, more experience and more end users which matters a lot for AI. And most importantly, OpenAI/Google/Apple can basically get app developers to add any missing details into their apps. Rabbit can't.
  - sniggers 2y ago
    >OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built in phone integration Have they done so or described any upcoming plans to do so? Rabbit is doing it now. Man this site is so anti-hacker it's insane. Probably because it's 90% big tech employees that are actively hurt by startups shaking things up. Should be renamed
    - marcinzm 2y ago
      > Rabbit is doing it now. You mean Perplexity, Anthropic, and OpenAI are doing so now. Rabbit is just using their models. Also, Startups are not hackers.
    - 2y ago

BoiledCabbage 2y ago

It sounds like this product isn't where it should be, and likely shipped too early. That said long term I want them or others to succeed. The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a world where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting mobile AI products. As any phone OS integrated Apple AI or Google AI will beat out any shipped apps store AI app long term. If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
> If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best. The only real allure of a separate device, for me, is isolating the bot from my data. I don't want it reading my emails and notifications and who knows what else. I suppose you could also market this for kids but they didn't go that route.
- cowsup 2y ago
  Marketing it to children means you have to start worrying about COPPA (if in the US, where Rabbit is HQ'd) or similar legislation elsewhere. An AI device that accepts voice input and is supposed to learn and adapt to your use-case is at ends with laws that say you cannot collect any information from children — not even an email address or username.
- outlore 2y ago
  That is my thought as well. But then, wouldn't it be better to get a separate cheap phone and install ChatGPT or Claude on it? Purely from a hardware perspective, a phone has all the sensors, chips etc needed for AI applications, so I'm puzzled why Humane and Rabbit thought that a standalone device was a better idea.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Their product doesn’t make any sense besides as an app. No one is going to carry a separate device around when your smartphone can do everything it can better. The chatGPT app on the iPhone already does everything the rabbit does better. They offer nothing.

frappuccino_o 2y ago

Running android is actually a good decision. We should celebrate it rather than scold Rabbit's founders. Creating OS is hard. Selling smart and intriguing devices for $200 is also hard. They had to pick one.

RIMR 2y ago
The issue is that Rabbit's founders marketed the R1 device as having abilities that surpass that of your smartphone. They sold the device as if it itself actually does something useful that your existing devices can't. But now we can see that it is just a weird shaped Android phone hard-coded to only run one app. It shatters the illusion that the R1 hardware was worth the $200 price tag, as the software under-the-hood could be equally if not more functional if it were just distributed as an app instead of as a piece of hardware. It would be different if the hardware had special sensors and processors that help maximize its functionality. There would be no issue for AOSP to be the base OS - in fact I would agree with your assessment that it was a good decision that should e celebrated. The hardware itself having novel capabilities would be the important aspect, not the OS they chose to build upon. Absent any special hardware functionality, it throws the entire Rabbit business model into question. They aren't charging licensing fees, and the service itself seems to be a lifetime subscription, so they aren't planning on making money selling software or SaaS services. The profit-making part of this business is selling hardware - and the hardware is just a worse version of the phone you already have... The software also seems barely useful. Pretty much just a bare-bones implementation of speech-to-text, GPT via REST API, and text-to-speech, with a handful of basic integrations. So once they've sold you the hardware, do they have any reason at all to improve the software or the service's offerings? If the R1 hardware can't do anything your phone can't, can they really compete with an app (even a paid app) that does the same thing on your almost certainly higher-spec'd smartphone? Given the founders' history of grifting, I am going to guess that the R1 hardware costs Rabbit <$50, and that the company will soon disappear, taking down any expensive cloud-based AI functionality with them, as soon as they feel they've sold enough units to line their pockets with the profits, and the R1 owners will be left with a brick.

starky 2y ago

I saw this news and my reaction was, "Of course it is, doing anything else would be stupid." But that on its own doesn't mean it could just be a phone app if the hardware adds something useful to the way the user interacts with it. For example, old Sony mirrorless cameras just ran Android under the hood but the specific hardware is what made those products, not the OS. As a hardware person, both the Rabbit R1 and the Humane pin are great examples of why I'm bored of today's technology in general. It feels like we have been caught in a cycle of minor spec increases and not much else (except maybe removing features/rights and shoehorning in a subscription) for the majority of technology we interact with day to day. Companies are desperately trying to come up with a new device class that will take off, but they all fail in the same way, nothing is solving real problems that people experience. Who wants to talk to something clipped on their shirt instead of pulling out the phone they already have? You don't see people in public talking to the assistant on their phone very often do you? Even if they worked well, these are likely destined to be niche products. It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products. I'm thinking unobtrusive AR, robotics, self-driving, etc. which are all going to take some time to mature to the point where they are practical.

nkozyra 2y ago
> It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products. Probably. I think we've hit a plateau with user interfaces for most connected gear. Sticking a physical scroll button on what is essentially a phone buys me nothing but annoyance. Phones just kind of do what we want and have an acceptable enough interface that the alternatives get in our way. The Humane Pin added the laser display but ... nobody wants it? This is starting to feel like sticking a spoiler on a phone and pretending it adds value. Maybe VCs are impressed by this stuff, I don't know. If there were a magic version of this it would have the model and processing onboard. That's obviously extremely cost prohibitive right now, but that's what it's going to take to create a real AI-powered assistant: * I need it to work without network latency. * I need multiple forms of input/output depending on the context. * I don't need Teenage Engineering's usual form-over-function design. I need the form to be out of my way most of the time. It's great that people are experimenting in this space. It's less great that people are getting multiple millions in funding and selling a phone and web service as an "AI device." This will hurt future development.