Rabbit R1 is officially in the hands of people

David Pierce at The Verge writes:

At this point, the best way I can describe the R1 is like a Picasso painting of a smartphone: it has most of the same parts, just laid out really differently. Instead of sitting on top or in the back, the R1’s camera sits in a cutout space on the right side of the device, where it can spin its lens to face both toward and away from you.

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After spending a few hours playing with the device, I have to say: it’s pretty nice. Not luxurious, or even particularly high-end, just silly and fun. Where Humane’s AI Pin feels like a carefully sculpted metal gem, the R1 feels like an old-school MP3 player crossed with a fidget spinner. The wheel spins a little stiffly for my taste but smoothly enough, the screen is a little fuzzy but fine, and the main action button feels satisfying to thump on.

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This is all fairly basic ChatGPT stuff, and there’s some definite lag as it fetches answers, but I much prefer the interface to the Humane AI Pin — because there’s a screen, and you can see the thing working so the AI delays don’t feel quite so interminable.

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That’s a good reminder that the whole thing is running on a virtual machine storing all your apps and credentials, which still gives me security-related pause.

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Rabbit’s roadmap is ambitious: Lyu has spent the last few months talking about all the things the R1’s so-called “Large Action Model” can do, including learning apps and using them for you. During last night’s event, he talked about opening up the USB-C port on the device to allow accessories, keyboards, and more. That’s all coming… eventually.

Rabbit R1 hands-on: early tests with the $199 AI gadget - The Verge

Kimberly Gedeon at Mashable

With the cute black-and-white rabbit icon bouncing up and down the screen surrounded by a "loud" color, the device reminded me of my childhood obsession with '90s pocket toys like the Tamagotchi or Digimon (handheld virtual pets).

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Shout-out to Teenage Engineering for designing this AI device; the Rabbit R1 makes me feel like a kid again.

Personal observations:

• The web is back, baby! Both Humane and Rabbit are relying on a web portal as the primary mechanism of interaction outside of the hardware device.
• rabbithole is a delightful name for the web portal. Kudos!
• Large Action Model feels an awful lot like UIPath, Appian, etc.
  • This is going to be an interesting juxtaposition to Ferret, which could be described as running an action model but natively and locally

Side note: Here's a worry and opportunity: All of these models from Humane, from Rabbit all rely on OAuth and all these functionalities providing OAuth access to the identity and then providing a robust API for actions. My worry is that every company is now going to charge for API access to the content you're already subscribed to. Worse, this is likely to pull in the timelines to that reality.

Overall, taking the gadget and fidget approach seems to be working for Rabbit. Let's see if that allows them to be a successful hardware company.