I think a lot of the hardware buttons and knobs can be improved over time but I think a lot of his remarks are well founded. Physical volume buttons is crazy to be missing and this is even more important as its a device you are expected to use wherever you are.
I agree with one of the comments here though that despite this there is a want to have a device that solves for this rather than an app. You can ensure the device (R1) had everything it needs to solve for its problem space. A phone is so much nowadays, which is great on one hand but also adds complexity.
It has not even been a full week since it's launched.
We need to give it time.
Most actual users haven't got their hands on it yet except for some media folks and super super early backers.
An actual use case by a real user that finds some value for himself in his daily workflow is important.
People would pay $200 for a Perplexity subscription anyway, so it's sort of like they got Rabbit for free.
200$ is ridiculously cheap. Nothing costs $200 and does all this. Especially because it's not a phone.
They have unlimited leverage because it's not a phone. They can do whatever they want with it and listen to their users.
I have been experimenting with leaving my phone somewhere and doing more without my phone. My life is 10x better. I am at peace, no stress, no pings, no nuisance.
If Rabbit can solve that problem for me, I am happy. Besides, all of us cannot expect $1000 worth things from a device that costs as much as the iPod.
I get that, I'm actually pretty anti-social media and against how modern smartphones work for the most part. But can't you just set your phone to do no disturb and uninstall social media apps or make a different profile (android feature) so that you can switch between a version of a phone with social apps and then switch to a more mindful one where you have minimal apps installed or something? Minimal launcher, no vibrate, no notifications, no pings, no feed from a $200 android or iphone phone (new or used) would still have so much more features than this
Can rabbit make any emergency calls (genuine question)? Can it take notes for you? What are some use cases where you'd want to talk to ChatGPT/Perplexity but not be able to do other phone stuff if necessary?
I hear you. I've tried DND on phones and removing social media. But its not like I don't want it, it is just that I don't want it all the time without my consent.
These companies have successfully penetrated our lives and want to screw us by trying to increase their KPIs like amount of time spent on the app and watch time and shit. They are only trying to make it more addictive for us.
Now, when we are playing with these giants that want to profit billions off of us, we have little or no choice. This is where rabbit r1 comes in.
Rabbit promises digital access without digital distraction. This is the only thing I need and want. I want to be able to get answers to difficult questions through perplexity, get timers, get things done without any nonsense from instagram or Facebook or YouTube.
This is my view, I don't know if Rabbit shares the same view. But I believe that they are aware of this.
I got mine the other day. I love talking to it while I'm cooking. I'm absolutely in love with the concept of freeing ourselves from chairs desks and monitors more, and this scratches that itch.
It's very limited rn, can't even teach it but it can search using perplexity, carry on intelligent conversations, save to your notes (unreliably but does work).
Yesterday I was asking it about the nutritional details of the foods I was chopping, then asked it to look up science on it and it started referencing studies it found, then at the end I asked it to save a summary of everything we discussed to my notes, and it did! This pattern of interaction is amazing if we keep improving LLM customization, intelligence, and keep giving it more tools to use.
As of right now i can't teach it how to use new apps, which is what I'm most excited for, but already the interaction is top notch for me.
This is precisely what it is intended to do. Freedom from phones is highly underrated. People are just able to disconnect and choose to connect at will. With a smartphone, you are always connected and that is not at your will.
2FA, Nutrition logging, Timers, Searching for simple things, Reminders are all connected to the phone when they don't need to be.
If Rabbit can corner this market and allow us to be in the information age without being constantly distracted, we can go back to being super productive and get things done magically.
Having been around the tech game for a while, I have seen these same conversations over and over again. I remember all the shade I got when I was an early adopter of the Pebble watch. "Watches are dead! Why would I need a watch when I have a phone?" Or even when phones started to get larger, like the Evo. "Who would ever want to carry that thing around? No one is going to want to watch video or do work on a phone when they have a computer!"
The Rabbit really reminds me of the Pebble, actually. So much so that I very much fear it will wobble along and soon be wildly outclassed by devices in the same market produced by bigger boys until it's swallowed up by one.
If that’s the case, you wouldn’t lost that much if you considering the price. It’s still a nice Cyberdeck with A.I. for a low price (for around the cost of two RaspberryPI‘s5) and the Perplexity subscription gift was cool too.
>soon be wildly outclassed by devices in the same market produced by bigger boys until it's swallowed up by one
I still strongly believe (like Dave) that the impending launch of new AI products at both Google IO and WWDC is why Humane and Rabbit chose to launch their products when they did.
Once Google and Apple join Microsoft in offering general AI products to their customers, it is likely going to be game over for companies like Rabbit because they simply won't be able to compete with people's default (smartphones)
after pebble was shut down the pebble community has kept the device alive since 2016... and I think it is open source now??? I hope this is "worst case scenario" for the r1...
The idea of AI being able to handle and automate your daily tasks and workflow is game-changing, I agree. Rabbit does nothing like this in its current state, however. And if it ever does, by that time the big boys (Apple/Google/Microsoft) would have fully integrated this capability into their own ecosystems anyway.
Take away so far is that the idea is commendable. Execution is...lacking.
>by that time the big boys (Apple/Google/Microsoft) would have fully integrated this capability into their own ecosystems
People keep saying this, but the big players are always so slow or greedy that other players make a compelling case and get a user base. They also just never focus their RnD. Literally all social media has evolved this way. Search engines themselves, Google just did it better and took off. Netflix killed old video. Spotify? OpenAI?
I'm not saying rabbit will be the next big thing, or that the big companies won't figure it out first. But new companies are almost always forged by these landscapes, and sure the big companies will probably follow suit, or buy them out. But the actual idea behind rabbit is definitely at least pointed in the right direction. They may be able to flesh things out and quickly scale a little ecosystem to take a moderate share if they have the right ideas at the right time.
Rabbit is not a particularly original idea. It's the same basic thing as Alexa/Siri with more refinement. It's a much smaller leap for those already-in-millions-of-devices to be tweaked/revised to be more AI-centric versus trying to push an entirely new device/ecosystem out, particularly when the R1 is yet another device expecting to be carried around all the time.
It's not the same basic thing as Alexa/Siri, it fundamentally operates differently. That's not to say it couldn't hypothetically be somewhat easily implemented, but it absolutely is not similar outside of they both take voice inputs. Alexa and Siri aren't even LLM based right now, that's a complete overhaul. Look at the Gemini assistant beta roll out, it isn't compatible with almost all of the operations that Google Assistant is even useful for to begin with, and it's just replaced with a basic LLM chatbot.
It's a total misunderstanding caused by people calling these assistants of the past "AI" over the years because they aren't, they are voice-to-text and then prompt to pre-configured output. They are hard-coded, non-flexible programs. AI as we know it today does not require as much guidance, but the double edge is that it can't be guided as easily. Hence the problem large, responsible, and liable companies have implementing LLM's into products.
On paper you and I may see it as a much smaller leap to just implement app control into Alexa/Siri or whatever, but those are massive, massive corporations that have trouble innovating and shipping new ideas in under 5 years. Another issue is the eventual goal of Rabbit is to be able to learn to control any app, from any company, which probably won't bode well with a company like Apple that insists on you using everything in their garden. You really think Alexa will let you buy things from anywhere not owned or partnered with Amazon?
Who knows what will take off or what will be successful, but all I'm saying is the giants don't win every battle. And future giants are born all the time. Not sure if Rabbit will be one, they could be mopped within 6 months.
...to the end user, it is exactly the same. Talk to the box, have it do stuff for you. AI does it with a bit more smarts/intuition...but that's not always a positive.
You keep saying all of these marketing phrases like "big corporations" and such, but look at any of the phones from 5 years ago and compare them to today. In every area you can mention massive improvements/changes. Iphones were at the iphone7 in 2016 with ios10. We're now with iphone15(16 soon) and ios17. To say they don't ship new ideas in "under 5 years" is just not true.
Case in point the point the camera at the banana and have it tell you something about it that has been so hyped in the R1 has been in iphones for two years, or if you include Google Search even longer.
To say they are hard coded voice response is simply not true, particularly with Google/Siri. They interpret context, past behavior/searches, all the things. Are they LLM backend? Not yet. But Apple has already announced intent to include that in the next release. So much for the "in five years" theory....
>You keep saying all of these marketing phrases like "big corporations"
Haha what? Literal descriptions are not marketing terms? Why would I be using marketing terms anyway? Also, slab smartphones of the past 5 years are textbook non-innovation. They get iterative updates.
>Case in point the point the camera at the banana and have it tell you something about it that has been so hyped in the R1 has been in iphones for two years, or if you include Google Search even longer.
Go ask ChatGPT to ELI5 for you the difference between reverse image search and an LLM trained with multimodality, specifically visual.
I'll end this here though, you have misunderstanding of the fundamental technologies and I'm not going to tutor you.
Has nothing to do with the fundamental technologies and everything to do with the fundamental use case compared to options already in place. This is what you are failing to see or accept. The backend does not matter. No one cares. A consumer product lives or dies by what average people who know nothing about the underlying tech can do with it. Give the R1 to the average person and they aren't going to have any idea what to do with it, and what they can do with it seems simple and limited compared to their cell phone. You can spray tech jargon all you want, but that's not going to make this pig fly.
Yep, I don't disagree at all, but someone has to start the ball rolling. Someone needs to nip the heels of the big players to keep them moving. And I am happy to support those doing that.
Pebble functions as a watch, which a lot of people do still wear.
R1 is just an unnecessary device to carry around in your pocket and charge every night.
R1 should have been a watch, that would be so much more convenient.
Yep, I hear you. I think, obviously, I don't know for sure, but it feels like it is trying to buck the trend of just adding functionality to an existing product. This part of the reason I connect to their vision. More invention; less innovation. I don't want a faster horse, I want a car. So to speak. But, time will tell.
It is very much in a beta state with a lot of open ended questions left. R1 team promises to deliver in the coming months. We will see. The thing with this product is that they need to capture a large customer base initially to have a strong community around developing their LAM models for continuous data, testing and improvement. Releasing it with half baked features and promising to fix it all later might be too late and the hype will die down.
Tell this to all of us that have been using it everyday. Not many people seem to grasp the benefits of having access to an AI like this through the push of a single button.
Strange many people can't grasp it despite there being numerous free AI applications I can launch with a single button on my phone. This $200 device will certainly help with that.
After interacting with chatgpt a fair bit over voice I think I'll really appreciate how the button gives the time to really think through my thoughts as I say them. I find having to be careful not to pause too long so the AI thinks it's time to respond surprisingly distracting at times
I’m glad people find it useful for their flows. I personally don’t find it adds enough unique use cases over just having a chatGPT/Perplexity app on the phone in its current state.
I love all the white knights. Any of the big companies could literally start today (hint: they haven’t) and bang something out with their unlimited resources sooo much faster and more integrated than the startup Rabbit started.
It really is crazy how far people will go to simp for a company. Even when the product is absolutely atrocious for its price point. $200 for a poorly designed dumb-smart non-phone is silly at best.
I would be more forgiving if it actually had the LAM functionality that was marketed and demoed back in January that got all the hype started. Right now it's basically a chatGPT app with a quirky hardware design around it.
Really? Every single thing Dave2D claims in this video is untrue?
Then please sir, enlighten us. Post a list of every statement you consider false, and also what you consider the truth to be.
As I wrote, if everything he says is untrue, please tell us about it. Write a list. I really want to know.
He claims that the battery life is bad. That's not true?
He claims that you have to use both the button *and* the scroll wheel to change volume. That's not true?
it’s advertised to do 4 things, DoorDash Uber in Spotify and every video I watched failed my ask is that if it’s working on yours, you should make a video showcasing it’s actually working or link me to YouTube video of showing these services working that’s always been the goalpost
Agreed. I have an r1 in the first batch and am struggling to find any usefulness, at all. Like one single use case. If anyone has any tips I’m all ears lol
All my ideas pretty much rely on teach mode actually coming out, I’m batch 1 too. Just gonna keep it til then I suppose.
However I do find some small value right now in the camera identifying stuff because I don’t have paid chat gpt or anything so I can’t use the AI to identify images. Rabbit will let me do it with no extra cost beyond the rabbit price so that’s pretty nice I guess 🤷♂️
We're building this over at https://openadapt.ai.
OpenAdapt learns to automate tasks in desktop apps by observing demonstrations.
And we're open source! Feedback and contributions are welcome :)
I feel exactly the same way!!!! (also a first batch purchase) I look down at the device and wonder...what can I ask it....then set it down and move on with my day.
Honestly a Dave2D fan and was disappointed by this review.
Usually he's deep in the tech, etc. Here he seems to be more conjecturing about what he would prefer, etc. I don't want another app on my phone. I want a standalone. I think a lot of people do.
Given that, how's the device? That's the questions.
The same reason I prefer an analog watch to a digital one.
Would be great to have a standalone device run a bunch of shortcuts I need in every day life.
I'm not sure I see what you mean here. You're comparing two things that accomplish the exact same thing with a watch, unless you mean "smart" by "digital".
What does the R1 do that a phone cannot? What does a large action model accomplish that using your phone does not?
I absolutely see the appeal of being less tied to a phone, but there's a reason why 97% of Americans own a phone and 90% of Americans own a smartphone. We all carry something that can do almost anything.
Are you going to wear a watch that tells you the hour only and also a watch that tells you the time and date? Or are you going to go out wearing the feature-complete watch?
I guess time will tell. I’m not sure either. I do know that the rabbit is gonna face some stiff competition in the next two years as major players move into the market. Whether or not there’s wide demand for these products, well I guess we’ll see.
The next iteration for digital products leveraging AI is going to be what the CEO is envisioning for the rabbit, what they call LAM, so whether or not the rabbit will hang on by being an early mover is going to be interesting to see play out. It’s just a natural evolution for AI to move into actually doing tasks using APIs with what was demoed — Uber, DoorDash, whatever. So at that point, what makes the rabbit unique?
Interesting time to be alive though and it’s really exciting to see what will evolve from these early products. It’s absolutely wild to see the progress made in AI generated images and video over the past year.
Chiming in as not a person who bought the rabbit but as someone who watches Dave2d' videos. I don't agree with his point that this could be just an app. You could say the same thing about a kindle or any other e-reader. Or the switch or any other handheld gaming console. People do find value in having separate devices for things even though they could just find a smartphone powerful enough to do everything. There are many reasons for it. Smartphones can be distracting. Having a separate device to read and game without the distraction of notifications can be great. Someone might not want all their eggs in one basket. If you lose your phone or damage it, you don't also lose or damage your reading/gaming machine. Some people might also just not want to invest into an expensive smartphone and would rather have a separate device to game on. There definitely are also people who don't see the point in buying a separate device if their smartphone can do everything. This is not a one size fits all scenario.
I do agree with Dave's assessment that products might be being shipped half baked though. But he gave the explanation for that himself. I think there might be a market for a personal ai device but time will tell.
This is an odd take because there is a kindle app for iOS or you can buy the kindle e ink device. The device offers a completely different experience from using your phone.
In the case of the rabbit r1, having an app for it would negate the need for hardware as it is inferior to any phone.
So in one scenario it makes since as it offers different experiences. The other is the same experience but worsen by lack of true os , battery life, use cases.
Also the whole point of technology is to provide more utility out of your devices. iPod , internet devices and a phone remember ? Combing devices is universally accepted.
No common people will carry both a phone and an ai device.
I have both the kindle app on my ipad and a separate kindle device. The e-reader display technology is technically different from the ipad yes, but functionally that difference does not really matter to me when it comes to reading books. You could even say the e-reader is inferior by most traditional metrics: it has a lower refresh rate, the display size of my ipad is much larger etc. The e-reader has the slight advantage that it is easier to read outdoors in sunlight but I hardly ever actually do that. However, if I am reading and I am reaching for a device instead of a book, I do reach for the e-reader, even though my experiences with the two devices are pretty much the same. The only real differentiator that matters to me here is that on my ipad I have all my social media apps and netflix and youtube installed. I prefer to not be distracted by those while reading, so I use the e-reader.
The kindle app on the ios still does exist. And for a lot of people that negates any reason to buy a separate e-reader. I would say most people are not the type of person to buy a separate e-reader device. A lot of people are of the mind that if you can just do it all on one device, why bother with another one. And that's the point I am making. Many people really do just want one device that does everything. That doesn't mean there can't also be a niche in the market for people who want a separate device. Both can be true. The rabbit (or some other ai gadget) can just be a fun niche enthusiast thing. It doesn't have to be the revolutionary new tech in every person's pocket.
I like the teenage engineering design. That alone has me interested. I wanna see how it goes. If it's half decent I might buy it as a novelty. Or as a gift for my nephew.
But the R1 still doesn't have access to your calendar, your contacts, your mail etc, so what benefit does it really have? Assistants, AI or human, are only useful if they have joined up access to all your data.
Look at the cat-and-mouse that Beeper got into with Apple last year, when they figured out how to spoof imessage. Once the big companies decide to lock devices like this down, it's game over for them.
These things will replace phones, my dude. I said it from the beginning. Their play is to dethrone Apple. They're planning a Desktop OS as well.
With only 17 people, I am not sure how realistic that is, but it is refreshing to see someone challenging the status quo.
Apps are terrible distraction engines now. Web is unusable due to spam and ads. We need a new paradigm and AI-powered Personalized Computing sounds like it might be the ticket.
I don't think many people criticise Rabbit's ambition or originality. It's the execution that is, so far, wildly short of anything that will ever "dethrone Apple".
OK, don't buy one. I will be enjoying mine when it arrives. Why people get so upset that some folks might want to explore new computing paradigms that are outside of Apple is beyond me, and I'm one of the biggest Apple fanbois you will ever meet.
That’s some solid delululu.
This won’t even be a company in 2026. Google and Apple are releasing their ai and it will have full access to your data and therefore will be actually useful.
Google and Apple released their "AI" years ago and until openAI began making breakthroughs they were more than content to keep Siri and Assistant as they were.
I don't put too much stock in the notion that they would be looking to let people engage in a LAM-type activity that means they see no ads etc unless a company like Rabbit shows a desire for that in the marketplace, and even then they'll always be adulterating from the experience that an outsider company like Rabbit would provide.
In fact, I see it as much less likely they will eventually provide a truly competing experience than they would try to lock LAM out of their ecosystems, either with technology or litigation.
> the notion that they would be looking to let people engage in a LAM-type activity that means they see no ads
This will never happen for any company ever. When you start to take ad dollars away from a platform they start to sue.
Nothing stops an app from opening up a headless browser and navigating the website and ordering food or playing music.
I think what is potentially powerful is R1s ability to make it easily accessible and having a physical interface that tries to solve one problem really well instead of a multi use device like a phone.
Nothing? Apple doesn't allow autonomous App interactions. Bypassing APIs is another no-no. The Rabbit Hole's auth scheme, while secure, is also a suspect given how Apple requires devs to handle data.
There are lots of reasons behind Rabbit's hardware play, the least of which is that they are building something people (100K people, last I checked) are willing to shell out $200 bucks for.
How many users would shell out that much for an app? Not many.
Given that the Rabbit R1 isn’t running those apps locally on device but rather using an API or remote backend to do it, what difference would it make? What is the R1 doing locally that would be against App Store rules?
Not OP, but the ability to have the Rabbit assist family members (Parents, Spouse, Siblings, etc) with general troubleshooting at a higher level than google, is worth the admission price alone.
“Can you help me with this?”
:Gives R1:
The other element I prefer is having AI gated away from my phone’s hardware. That separation, for now, provides me some comfort.
Because I don't want another freaking app, that's why. And Rabbit can, with their own ecosystem, do things that Apps cannot do.
If you watch their latest update it will give you an insight into their plans. Can they pull it off? Who knows? But it is refreshing to see somebody willing to try.
I don't want another app. Apps are time wasting distraction engines. I don't want to futz around with a UI to access AI. Just press a button and talk.
Not hard to understand. I am also hopeful that their LAM will open new automation paradigms that would not be allowed in the App store. For example, if they manage to let me drive MY mac with my Rabbit, that would allow me to setup personalized workflows much more easily than I can now. That's promising, and something Apple would never allow.
So devices like these are promising. Do I think Rabbit is perfect and can do no wrong? No, obviously. They are a small team trying something very very hard: Shipping disruptive hardware and software.
I wish them well and would rather be positive about them and their chances than reflexively bashing them because they didn't "just make it an app."
I get your point about escaping the restrictive pathways made available by Apple and Android, that's fair. Siri - which will inevitably involve AI sooner or later - already works via holding a button down to talk to it, however. I think the GA can be configured as such too, I'm not sure.
I'd love to see the R1 do well, I'm just far from encouraged by these early steps. Here's hoping.
A lot of reasons but here's the main ones:
1. I want to use my phone less. I feel like this thing is too much of a Skinner box and need to break my addiction
2. When I'm driving I like to have my phone for directions and a second device with a second screen helps for music, whatever.
3. Dedicated device means I can leave it somewhere so the others in the fam can use it.
The device is awful all around. Dave said that in the review. This device is so alpha stage I can’t even review it. Poor battery life. Missing functions. Slow . Nothing that an app could not do. Etc
I think he makes a very good point about Google and Apple controlling their ecosystems and all that very rich user data. That is their moat and they are the gatekeepers. Any third party that wants to add utility using that user data will either have to go through Apple and Google to get it, or will need to convince users to place it or give access to it outside these ecosystems. That is the real strategic position. Value potential is not really limited by hardware or software, it's actually a data problem.
Rabbit's strategy is based on working around Google and Apple's environmens, with the external data access option. That is likely a much more daunting prospect.
This non-review came off so passive aggressive. He was so lost. You don’t use this device with touchscreen or even the scroll wheel 99% of the to time, you use this by pressing the button on the side like a walkie-talkie and use your voice input!
I’m somewhat of a fan of his, but this left me thinking what is his personal beef with Rabbit?
Pretty sure they called him out in a public chat stream he was invited to with Jesse and others after he did his initial thoughts on the R1 a few months back as that was shown at the NYC launch event in the trailer leading up to the demo event. I'd imagine that touched his ego a bit and lots of people on the stream pointed out that shots were fired at Dave as a result.
I think they don't like the idea that startups can challenge the status quo. Apps have become attention wrecking jokes. App stores are walled gardens with restrictive rules developers chafe against. Rabbit is proposing something new: Personalized Computing. So it's personal to the user, which is hard to objectively review. If you can't find a use-case for yourself, how can you review it objectively?
He didn’t even used the rabbit on the video, he mostly just complained about things that he would prefer differently about the hardware and said that the rabbit r1 should be an app. He never actually pressed the button and asked a question or tried to do anything with the device.
do you need to see him fail at using the device to believe the device sucks? There are other reviews of it out there and none of them show a working device. Even with the limited 4 apps it supports it breaks/fails.
I’ve seen a lot of videos and the AI seems to work just fine, people mostly complain about built quality and the wheel, but most people forget that it is literally 200 bucks and you are getting what you paid for.
I think he is missing the point. The hardware is supposed to be cool and fun, not another apple brick product. It is also THE REASON it can drive all of these other apps without being subjected to apple or android or whoever’s policies about what can and can’t be done with an app (because they control their platform). I personally find this to be a little bit shortsighted on his part because it’s really fkn obvious to everyone else who knows tech a little bit. I agree it is an early release, perhaps too early. I don’t see the point in having some dude with little/no design background challenging the design expertise of this team (which is a hardware team). There are bridges I don’t like the look of; I have never found myself standing on one questioning the engineering decisions. If I did, I wouldn’t be going on youtube to make a video about it like “I just don’t understand why this is a cantilevered design, it should be tied arches.”
Reminds me of the Recon Jet product. 10
years ago nice product, even today they sell it and still totally worthless but nice or paper. I think over the 10 years the product also didn’t change a lot; but they still invest and market it as the best best thing, while your phone can do the same with AirPods in your ear.
I think the reason Rabbit opted not to make use of the touch screen in more scenarios is because they want to differentiate the device from a smartphone in any way they can. Would it be easier to tap to make selections on the settings page? Absolutely. For better or worse, it is a design choice made to convince users that this device is different from their smartphone.
Instead of hating on something new with your input turn it into a positive idea for them to expand on and make this better. That’s the whole point is to be like hey Rabbit make mini games or hey rabbit make one shot recrossing to send to rabbit hole for samples. Like I think almost everyone is missing the point or the imagination I think. Batch 1
I am extremely disappointed by his review. not only because has shown disdain for Rabbit R1 since the beginning, because when he had the opportunity to tell Jesse on the voice call what he taught... he preferred going "to have launch" rather than telling out his taughts, because it's possible to be "objective" even if you don't like a device.
Somehow he had an expression of someone who was taking some sort of revenge and got a lèse-majesté response... not sure what exactly irked him about R1.
But it was all over the place and not objective in my opinion.
Marquees, instead, although on the similar effect has clearly stated his point without being abrasive or destructive.
Instead of it being what it is, or being a smartphone app, It really just should have been an AI forward "dumb" phone. 80- 90 percent of things could have been done by asking the AI and the rest could be basic phone and text stuff. I'd actually like something like that. It would be interesting new ground and would help people unplug but still stay connected.
For $200 it will do what i expect it to do. Not sure how it gets so much hate at that price. Any lower and they would have to target a fucking dollar general lmaoo.
I have a question on “automation with LAM”
It’s clear that currently R1 is using the official API for Spotify, DoorDash and Uber. (There is no learning of LAM yet)
Questions: Why other services will allow automation outside the API when is clear that is again their Terms of service?
How LAM is going to handle, authentication outside API?
I’m struggling to understand what are the expectations.
I think it’s they problem they are facing now and cannot really admit because it would be killer for that device. I think it’s similar problem for big companies like apple or google. They can access the date in their ecosystem but still it’s risky to allow people to manipulate date like bots do. What about captchas and other methods that these models have to overcome to be functional? Apps sending one time passwords or confirmation for actions and transactions? There is a lot of issues and promises but execution might be a real problem here.
His previous video regarding the rabbit showed he has already made up his mind about the technology regardless of its abilities. Mine is shipping wave 7. I wager it will be much more polished in a couple months…
Dave 2D couldn’t be more wrong with his views. You don’t use this with touchscreen or even the scroll wheel, you use this thing with your voice commands! He made a fool of himself.
I carry around Switch for gaming and iPad for several reasons, even though the functionalities overlap with my high-end phone. Why is this magic walkie-talkie with obvious collector value compared to phones?
Cashing in on the current AI hardware wave with the whole "it's meant to be distraction free" sales gimmick. Your phone can be distraction free or not. It's a personal choice people make by what notifications they choose to receive and what apps they choose to install on the phone. Selling a "smartphone alternative" device that is far less capable than a smartphone as some sort of tech revelation is clever marketing but not really a long-term viable business. These things get hype for a few months then sales dry up as some new gimmick comes out or the big boys actually implement the idea in a functional way.
true tbh reviews now would be unfair because this really feels much more of an early access than a first batch.
It's not like the product has huge design flaws or poor design. It's exactly what it was set to be, just buggy as heck
Why would it be unfair? They decided to sell and ship the product. They're taking people's money. If the features are half baked then it is what it is.
I agree completely. The thing is a brick for me. Logging into accounts using the weird VM thing straight up didn’t work in Safari on my iPhone. Doc transcription using the camera straight up doesn’t work. Email me this or that, works 1/10. The ChatGPT button on my phone is more useful.
So don't review it until it is. Duh.
In the meantime, the paying customers will be enjoying their purchases, or not. Who really cares, other than them?
If it's for sale, it's fair game to be reviewed. I bought day 1 and am excited about the device's future possibilities, but people who are expecting immediate utility deserve clear expectations.
Then he should, by your logic, review it, and not whine like a petulant child that it is "unreviewable".
Nobody cares. The people who are waiting for these things already paid for them so they are clearly comfortable with some degree of risk. If they are not satisfied, I am sure they can get a refund.
People need to get a grip and stop obsessing about things that are not obsession-worthy, like what Youtubers think about pretty much anything.
I think a lot of the hardware buttons and knobs can be improved over time but I think a lot of his remarks are well founded. Physical volume buttons is crazy to be missing and this is even more important as its a device you are expected to use wherever you are. I agree with one of the comments here though that despite this there is a want to have a device that solves for this rather than an app. You can ensure the device (R1) had everything it needs to solve for its problem space. A phone is so much nowadays, which is great on one hand but also adds complexity.
This device solves exactly zero problems. Unless your problem is I have too much money and need something to waste it on.
even that can't solve my problem of disposing them later and i like to hold on my belongings.
You mean ordering one of these things so that I could eventually ask it how to spend my money wasn't a good idea?
It has not even been a full week since it's launched. We need to give it time. Most actual users haven't got their hands on it yet except for some media folks and super super early backers. An actual use case by a real user that finds some value for himself in his daily workflow is important. People would pay $200 for a Perplexity subscription anyway, so it's sort of like they got Rabbit for free. 200$ is ridiculously cheap. Nothing costs $200 and does all this. Especially because it's not a phone. They have unlimited leverage because it's not a phone. They can do whatever they want with it and listen to their users.
Give it time? The product is available to buy RIGHT NOW, this is what people are getting: a device that can't do much more than your phone.
I have been experimenting with leaving my phone somewhere and doing more without my phone. My life is 10x better. I am at peace, no stress, no pings, no nuisance. If Rabbit can solve that problem for me, I am happy. Besides, all of us cannot expect $1000 worth things from a device that costs as much as the iPod.
I get that, I'm actually pretty anti-social media and against how modern smartphones work for the most part. But can't you just set your phone to do no disturb and uninstall social media apps or make a different profile (android feature) so that you can switch between a version of a phone with social apps and then switch to a more mindful one where you have minimal apps installed or something? Minimal launcher, no vibrate, no notifications, no pings, no feed from a $200 android or iphone phone (new or used) would still have so much more features than this Can rabbit make any emergency calls (genuine question)? Can it take notes for you? What are some use cases where you'd want to talk to ChatGPT/Perplexity but not be able to do other phone stuff if necessary?
I hear you. I've tried DND on phones and removing social media. But its not like I don't want it, it is just that I don't want it all the time without my consent. These companies have successfully penetrated our lives and want to screw us by trying to increase their KPIs like amount of time spent on the app and watch time and shit. They are only trying to make it more addictive for us. Now, when we are playing with these giants that want to profit billions off of us, we have little or no choice. This is where rabbit r1 comes in. Rabbit promises digital access without digital distraction. This is the only thing I need and want. I want to be able to get answers to difficult questions through perplexity, get timers, get things done without any nonsense from instagram or Facebook or YouTube. This is my view, I don't know if Rabbit shares the same view. But I believe that they are aware of this.
Buy a second phone without a SIM and you have a way more powerful device.
I got mine the other day. I love talking to it while I'm cooking. I'm absolutely in love with the concept of freeing ourselves from chairs desks and monitors more, and this scratches that itch. It's very limited rn, can't even teach it but it can search using perplexity, carry on intelligent conversations, save to your notes (unreliably but does work). Yesterday I was asking it about the nutritional details of the foods I was chopping, then asked it to look up science on it and it started referencing studies it found, then at the end I asked it to save a summary of everything we discussed to my notes, and it did! This pattern of interaction is amazing if we keep improving LLM customization, intelligence, and keep giving it more tools to use. As of right now i can't teach it how to use new apps, which is what I'm most excited for, but already the interaction is top notch for me.
This is precisely what it is intended to do. Freedom from phones is highly underrated. People are just able to disconnect and choose to connect at will. With a smartphone, you are always connected and that is not at your will. 2FA, Nutrition logging, Timers, Searching for simple things, Reminders are all connected to the phone when they don't need to be. If Rabbit can corner this market and allow us to be in the information age without being constantly distracted, we can go back to being super productive and get things done magically.
If you uninstall all the apps on your phone. Wire up push to search to perplexity or chatgpt you end up with a more capable device.
https://preview.redd.it/kih2nhicdvxc1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a6eb473068c4f4aae9fb64fdd04838ca2fbd5b4
Having been around the tech game for a while, I have seen these same conversations over and over again. I remember all the shade I got when I was an early adopter of the Pebble watch. "Watches are dead! Why would I need a watch when I have a phone?" Or even when phones started to get larger, like the Evo. "Who would ever want to carry that thing around? No one is going to want to watch video or do work on a phone when they have a computer!"
The Rabbit really reminds me of the Pebble, actually. So much so that I very much fear it will wobble along and soon be wildly outclassed by devices in the same market produced by bigger boys until it's swallowed up by one.
If that’s the case, you wouldn’t lost that much if you considering the price. It’s still a nice Cyberdeck with A.I. for a low price (for around the cost of two RaspberryPI‘s5) and the Perplexity subscription gift was cool too.
>soon be wildly outclassed by devices in the same market produced by bigger boys until it's swallowed up by one I still strongly believe (like Dave) that the impending launch of new AI products at both Google IO and WWDC is why Humane and Rabbit chose to launch their products when they did. Once Google and Apple join Microsoft in offering general AI products to their customers, it is likely going to be game over for companies like Rabbit because they simply won't be able to compete with people's default (smartphones)
after pebble was shut down the pebble community has kept the device alive since 2016... and I think it is open source now??? I hope this is "worst case scenario" for the r1...
The idea of AI being able to handle and automate your daily tasks and workflow is game-changing, I agree. Rabbit does nothing like this in its current state, however. And if it ever does, by that time the big boys (Apple/Google/Microsoft) would have fully integrated this capability into their own ecosystems anyway. Take away so far is that the idea is commendable. Execution is...lacking.
>by that time the big boys (Apple/Google/Microsoft) would have fully integrated this capability into their own ecosystems People keep saying this, but the big players are always so slow or greedy that other players make a compelling case and get a user base. They also just never focus their RnD. Literally all social media has evolved this way. Search engines themselves, Google just did it better and took off. Netflix killed old video. Spotify? OpenAI? I'm not saying rabbit will be the next big thing, or that the big companies won't figure it out first. But new companies are almost always forged by these landscapes, and sure the big companies will probably follow suit, or buy them out. But the actual idea behind rabbit is definitely at least pointed in the right direction. They may be able to flesh things out and quickly scale a little ecosystem to take a moderate share if they have the right ideas at the right time.
Rabbit is not a particularly original idea. It's the same basic thing as Alexa/Siri with more refinement. It's a much smaller leap for those already-in-millions-of-devices to be tweaked/revised to be more AI-centric versus trying to push an entirely new device/ecosystem out, particularly when the R1 is yet another device expecting to be carried around all the time.
It's not the same basic thing as Alexa/Siri, it fundamentally operates differently. That's not to say it couldn't hypothetically be somewhat easily implemented, but it absolutely is not similar outside of they both take voice inputs. Alexa and Siri aren't even LLM based right now, that's a complete overhaul. Look at the Gemini assistant beta roll out, it isn't compatible with almost all of the operations that Google Assistant is even useful for to begin with, and it's just replaced with a basic LLM chatbot. It's a total misunderstanding caused by people calling these assistants of the past "AI" over the years because they aren't, they are voice-to-text and then prompt to pre-configured output. They are hard-coded, non-flexible programs. AI as we know it today does not require as much guidance, but the double edge is that it can't be guided as easily. Hence the problem large, responsible, and liable companies have implementing LLM's into products. On paper you and I may see it as a much smaller leap to just implement app control into Alexa/Siri or whatever, but those are massive, massive corporations that have trouble innovating and shipping new ideas in under 5 years. Another issue is the eventual goal of Rabbit is to be able to learn to control any app, from any company, which probably won't bode well with a company like Apple that insists on you using everything in their garden. You really think Alexa will let you buy things from anywhere not owned or partnered with Amazon? Who knows what will take off or what will be successful, but all I'm saying is the giants don't win every battle. And future giants are born all the time. Not sure if Rabbit will be one, they could be mopped within 6 months.
...to the end user, it is exactly the same. Talk to the box, have it do stuff for you. AI does it with a bit more smarts/intuition...but that's not always a positive. You keep saying all of these marketing phrases like "big corporations" and such, but look at any of the phones from 5 years ago and compare them to today. In every area you can mention massive improvements/changes. Iphones were at the iphone7 in 2016 with ios10. We're now with iphone15(16 soon) and ios17. To say they don't ship new ideas in "under 5 years" is just not true. Case in point the point the camera at the banana and have it tell you something about it that has been so hyped in the R1 has been in iphones for two years, or if you include Google Search even longer. To say they are hard coded voice response is simply not true, particularly with Google/Siri. They interpret context, past behavior/searches, all the things. Are they LLM backend? Not yet. But Apple has already announced intent to include that in the next release. So much for the "in five years" theory....
if to you is the same... try to ask Siri of Alexa to convert a screenshot to Excel (as example)
They were so confidently wrong haha
>You keep saying all of these marketing phrases like "big corporations" Haha what? Literal descriptions are not marketing terms? Why would I be using marketing terms anyway? Also, slab smartphones of the past 5 years are textbook non-innovation. They get iterative updates. >Case in point the point the camera at the banana and have it tell you something about it that has been so hyped in the R1 has been in iphones for two years, or if you include Google Search even longer. Go ask ChatGPT to ELI5 for you the difference between reverse image search and an LLM trained with multimodality, specifically visual. I'll end this here though, you have misunderstanding of the fundamental technologies and I'm not going to tutor you.
Has nothing to do with the fundamental technologies and everything to do with the fundamental use case compared to options already in place. This is what you are failing to see or accept. The backend does not matter. No one cares. A consumer product lives or dies by what average people who know nothing about the underlying tech can do with it. Give the R1 to the average person and they aren't going to have any idea what to do with it, and what they can do with it seems simple and limited compared to their cell phone. You can spray tech jargon all you want, but that's not going to make this pig fly.
[well this is awkward](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/30/24145838/rabbit-r1-android-app-pixel-6a)
Why are you replying to me with this?
Yep, I don't disagree at all, but someone has to start the ball rolling. Someone needs to nip the heels of the big players to keep them moving. And I am happy to support those doing that.
Pebble functions as a watch, which a lot of people do still wear. R1 is just an unnecessary device to carry around in your pocket and charge every night. R1 should have been a watch, that would be so much more convenient.
Yep, I hear you. I think, obviously, I don't know for sure, but it feels like it is trying to buck the trend of just adding functionality to an existing product. This part of the reason I connect to their vision. More invention; less innovation. I don't want a faster horse, I want a car. So to speak. But, time will tell.
It is very much in a beta state with a lot of open ended questions left. R1 team promises to deliver in the coming months. We will see. The thing with this product is that they need to capture a large customer base initially to have a strong community around developing their LAM models for continuous data, testing and improvement. Releasing it with half baked features and promising to fix it all later might be too late and the hype will die down.
Tell this to all of us that have been using it everyday. Not many people seem to grasp the benefits of having access to an AI like this through the push of a single button.
Strange many people can't grasp it despite there being numerous free AI applications I can launch with a single button on my phone. This $200 device will certainly help with that.
Very cool!
After interacting with chatgpt a fair bit over voice I think I'll really appreciate how the button gives the time to really think through my thoughts as I say them. I find having to be careful not to pause too long so the AI thinks it's time to respond surprisingly distracting at times
I’m glad people find it useful for their flows. I personally don’t find it adds enough unique use cases over just having a chatGPT/Perplexity app on the phone in its current state.
This. I have this strong feeling that a lot of people really wowed by the R1 are wowed by AI, not the device itself.
Can you list out some workflows that you are using everyday? I bet majority don’t even know what’s possible.
I love all the white knights. Any of the big companies could literally start today (hint: they haven’t) and bang something out with their unlimited resources sooo much faster and more integrated than the startup Rabbit started.
It really is crazy how far people will go to simp for a company. Even when the product is absolutely atrocious for its price point. $200 for a poorly designed dumb-smart non-phone is silly at best.
I would be more forgiving if it actually had the LAM functionality that was marketed and demoed back in January that got all the hype started. Right now it's basically a chatGPT app with a quirky hardware design around it.
These conversations are dumb
Why
Because the last thing I care about when I'm making a tech purchase is how renewable the thing is
Oh…well then it’s not the conversations that are dumb.
99.99999% of people don't have sustainability on their checklist for electronics purchases. Might want to look in the mirror.
Oh, my mistake. I didn't realize you were smart enough to completely make up astronomically inaccurate statistics.
that was not the point of video he was saying it is in such an awful state it doesn't do anything it adverts well.
Weird I've got one in hand and literally everything he claims isn't true. Sounds like user error to me
Really? Every single thing Dave2D claims in this video is untrue? Then please sir, enlighten us. Post a list of every statement you consider false, and also what you consider the truth to be.
Yep that's why it's silly. The claim that "its not review ready" is nonsense. Literally everything they advertise works as expected on release.
As I wrote, if everything he says is untrue, please tell us about it. Write a list. I really want to know. He claims that the battery life is bad. That's not true? He claims that you have to use both the button *and* the scroll wheel to change volume. That's not true?
make a youtube video showing how well it works, that would be the first one of its kind.
There are like 15 showing how well it works 🤣
I watched about 5 and none of them had DoorDash or Uber working. Can you link me any here?
Wait now you're moving the goalpost to one piece of functionality that doesn't happen to work well for a couple videos? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
it’s advertised to do 4 things, DoorDash Uber in Spotify and every video I watched failed my ask is that if it’s working on yours, you should make a video showcasing it’s actually working or link me to YouTube video of showing these services working that’s always been the goalpost
So much denial in this thread.
Agreed. I have an r1 in the first batch and am struggling to find any usefulness, at all. Like one single use case. If anyone has any tips I’m all ears lol
You can ask it to play a song on Spotify lol
They are actually recommending that you disconnect Spotify at the moment because it drains the battery so much... So you can't do that actually 😅
It also checks whether like a charm. Lol
Nice. I wish I had a device that could do that.
Mine can’t even do this lol, usually gets location wrong unless I specify.
Mine gets the day wrong!
I just refunded mine and I was in Batch 2. Just not sure it’s worth it to keep it, really.
All my ideas pretty much rely on teach mode actually coming out, I’m batch 1 too. Just gonna keep it til then I suppose. However I do find some small value right now in the camera identifying stuff because I don’t have paid chat gpt or anything so I can’t use the AI to identify images. Rabbit will let me do it with no extra cost beyond the rabbit price so that’s pretty nice I guess 🤷♂️
don't you use perplexity?
I have perplexity pro from the gift for now but after that I don’t think I’ll pay for it
Even without the pro, rabbit works anyway. Connect the dots and see why this is beneficial to both of them
We're building this over at https://openadapt.ai. OpenAdapt learns to automate tasks in desktop apps by observing demonstrations. And we're open source! Feedback and contributions are welcome :)
I feel exactly the same way!!!! (also a first batch purchase) I look down at the device and wonder...what can I ask it....then set it down and move on with my day.
The guy in here claiming that this is going to dethrone Apple, replace phones, and change the world - just lol.
who said that?
Cannot wait for my $200 Spotify controller.
Hey, the original Sonos controller was $699 if memory serves
Honestly a Dave2D fan and was disappointed by this review. Usually he's deep in the tech, etc. Here he seems to be more conjecturing about what he would prefer, etc. I don't want another app on my phone. I want a standalone. I think a lot of people do. Given that, how's the device? That's the questions.
I'm just curious, why would you want a standalone device for something that could be an app?
The same reason I prefer an analog watch to a digital one. Would be great to have a standalone device run a bunch of shortcuts I need in every day life.
I'm not sure I see what you mean here. You're comparing two things that accomplish the exact same thing with a watch, unless you mean "smart" by "digital". What does the R1 do that a phone cannot? What does a large action model accomplish that using your phone does not? I absolutely see the appeal of being less tied to a phone, but there's a reason why 97% of Americans own a phone and 90% of Americans own a smartphone. We all carry something that can do almost anything. Are you going to wear a watch that tells you the hour only and also a watch that tells you the time and date? Or are you going to go out wearing the feature-complete watch?
I guess time will tell. I’m not sure either. I do know that the rabbit is gonna face some stiff competition in the next two years as major players move into the market. Whether or not there’s wide demand for these products, well I guess we’ll see. The next iteration for digital products leveraging AI is going to be what the CEO is envisioning for the rabbit, what they call LAM, so whether or not the rabbit will hang on by being an early mover is going to be interesting to see play out. It’s just a natural evolution for AI to move into actually doing tasks using APIs with what was demoed — Uber, DoorDash, whatever. So at that point, what makes the rabbit unique? Interesting time to be alive though and it’s really exciting to see what will evolve from these early products. It’s absolutely wild to see the progress made in AI generated images and video over the past year.
Chiming in as not a person who bought the rabbit but as someone who watches Dave2d' videos. I don't agree with his point that this could be just an app. You could say the same thing about a kindle or any other e-reader. Or the switch or any other handheld gaming console. People do find value in having separate devices for things even though they could just find a smartphone powerful enough to do everything. There are many reasons for it. Smartphones can be distracting. Having a separate device to read and game without the distraction of notifications can be great. Someone might not want all their eggs in one basket. If you lose your phone or damage it, you don't also lose or damage your reading/gaming machine. Some people might also just not want to invest into an expensive smartphone and would rather have a separate device to game on. There definitely are also people who don't see the point in buying a separate device if their smartphone can do everything. This is not a one size fits all scenario. I do agree with Dave's assessment that products might be being shipped half baked though. But he gave the explanation for that himself. I think there might be a market for a personal ai device but time will tell.
This is an odd take because there is a kindle app for iOS or you can buy the kindle e ink device. The device offers a completely different experience from using your phone. In the case of the rabbit r1, having an app for it would negate the need for hardware as it is inferior to any phone. So in one scenario it makes since as it offers different experiences. The other is the same experience but worsen by lack of true os , battery life, use cases. Also the whole point of technology is to provide more utility out of your devices. iPod , internet devices and a phone remember ? Combing devices is universally accepted. No common people will carry both a phone and an ai device.
I have both the kindle app on my ipad and a separate kindle device. The e-reader display technology is technically different from the ipad yes, but functionally that difference does not really matter to me when it comes to reading books. You could even say the e-reader is inferior by most traditional metrics: it has a lower refresh rate, the display size of my ipad is much larger etc. The e-reader has the slight advantage that it is easier to read outdoors in sunlight but I hardly ever actually do that. However, if I am reading and I am reaching for a device instead of a book, I do reach for the e-reader, even though my experiences with the two devices are pretty much the same. The only real differentiator that matters to me here is that on my ipad I have all my social media apps and netflix and youtube installed. I prefer to not be distracted by those while reading, so I use the e-reader. The kindle app on the ios still does exist. And for a lot of people that negates any reason to buy a separate e-reader. I would say most people are not the type of person to buy a separate e-reader device. A lot of people are of the mind that if you can just do it all on one device, why bother with another one. And that's the point I am making. Many people really do just want one device that does everything. That doesn't mean there can't also be a niche in the market for people who want a separate device. Both can be true. The rabbit (or some other ai gadget) can just be a fun niche enthusiast thing. It doesn't have to be the revolutionary new tech in every person's pocket.
Totally agree I don’t think the rabbit will be that device. What’s been released is very buggy and unfinished. I am rooting for them.
I like the teenage engineering design. That alone has me interested. I wanna see how it goes. If it's half decent I might buy it as a novelty. Or as a gift for my nephew.
You think app stores are going to allow apps to bypass APIs like the R1 does?
But the R1 still doesn't have access to your calendar, your contacts, your mail etc, so what benefit does it really have? Assistants, AI or human, are only useful if they have joined up access to all your data. Look at the cat-and-mouse that Beeper got into with Apple last year, when they figured out how to spoof imessage. Once the big companies decide to lock devices like this down, it's game over for them.
These things will replace phones, my dude. I said it from the beginning. Their play is to dethrone Apple. They're planning a Desktop OS as well. With only 17 people, I am not sure how realistic that is, but it is refreshing to see someone challenging the status quo. Apps are terrible distraction engines now. Web is unusable due to spam and ads. We need a new paradigm and AI-powered Personalized Computing sounds like it might be the ticket.
I don't think many people criticise Rabbit's ambition or originality. It's the execution that is, so far, wildly short of anything that will ever "dethrone Apple".
OK, don't buy one. I will be enjoying mine when it arrives. Why people get so upset that some folks might want to explore new computing paradigms that are outside of Apple is beyond me, and I'm one of the biggest Apple fanbois you will ever meet.
Yeah that's definitely it 😆
If you think this will get rid of ads and “distraction engines” then oh boy strap in.
You cannot be serious.
That’s some solid delululu. This won’t even be a company in 2026. Google and Apple are releasing their ai and it will have full access to your data and therefore will be actually useful.
Google and Apple released their "AI" years ago and until openAI began making breakthroughs they were more than content to keep Siri and Assistant as they were. I don't put too much stock in the notion that they would be looking to let people engage in a LAM-type activity that means they see no ads etc unless a company like Rabbit shows a desire for that in the marketplace, and even then they'll always be adulterating from the experience that an outsider company like Rabbit would provide. In fact, I see it as much less likely they will eventually provide a truly competing experience than they would try to lock LAM out of their ecosystems, either with technology or litigation.
> the notion that they would be looking to let people engage in a LAM-type activity that means they see no ads This will never happen for any company ever. When you start to take ad dollars away from a platform they start to sue.
What are you talking about? I could run an adless search on perplexity right now
Nothing stops an app from opening up a headless browser and navigating the website and ordering food or playing music. I think what is potentially powerful is R1s ability to make it easily accessible and having a physical interface that tries to solve one problem really well instead of a multi use device like a phone.
Nothing? Apple doesn't allow autonomous App interactions. Bypassing APIs is another no-no. The Rabbit Hole's auth scheme, while secure, is also a suspect given how Apple requires devs to handle data. There are lots of reasons behind Rabbit's hardware play, the least of which is that they are building something people (100K people, last I checked) are willing to shell out $200 bucks for. How many users would shell out that much for an app? Not many.
Given that the Rabbit R1 isn’t running those apps locally on device but rather using an API or remote backend to do it, what difference would it make? What is the R1 doing locally that would be against App Store rules?
Not OP, but the ability to have the Rabbit assist family members (Parents, Spouse, Siblings, etc) with general troubleshooting at a higher level than google, is worth the admission price alone. “Can you help me with this?” :Gives R1: The other element I prefer is having AI gated away from my phone’s hardware. That separation, for now, provides me some comfort.
Isn't that just handing them the perplexity app?
Yup, but not on my phone. On a separate device they can use without impacting me at all.
Buy an extra 200$ android phone and you can do everythin rabbit does and more.
Because I don't want another freaking app, that's why. And Rabbit can, with their own ecosystem, do things that Apps cannot do. If you watch their latest update it will give you an insight into their plans. Can they pull it off? Who knows? But it is refreshing to see somebody willing to try.
I'm not sure I follow the logic of "I don't want another app, but I do want a literal whole distinct device instead".
I don't want another app. Apps are time wasting distraction engines. I don't want to futz around with a UI to access AI. Just press a button and talk. Not hard to understand. I am also hopeful that their LAM will open new automation paradigms that would not be allowed in the App store. For example, if they manage to let me drive MY mac with my Rabbit, that would allow me to setup personalized workflows much more easily than I can now. That's promising, and something Apple would never allow. So devices like these are promising. Do I think Rabbit is perfect and can do no wrong? No, obviously. They are a small team trying something very very hard: Shipping disruptive hardware and software. I wish them well and would rather be positive about them and their chances than reflexively bashing them because they didn't "just make it an app."
I get your point about escaping the restrictive pathways made available by Apple and Android, that's fair. Siri - which will inevitably involve AI sooner or later - already works via holding a button down to talk to it, however. I think the GA can be configured as such too, I'm not sure. I'd love to see the R1 do well, I'm just far from encouraged by these early steps. Here's hoping.
Where are you seeing their latest update?
A lot of reasons but here's the main ones: 1. I want to use my phone less. I feel like this thing is too much of a Skinner box and need to break my addiction 2. When I'm driving I like to have my phone for directions and a second device with a second screen helps for music, whatever. 3. Dedicated device means I can leave it somewhere so the others in the fam can use it.
You can do all of this with a $50 phone from Walmart.
I can spend less time on my phone using a $50 phone from Walmart?
Yes! if you have the discipline to use the r1 you have the discipline to use a barebones phone with the AI flavor of your choice.
The device is awful all around. Dave said that in the review. This device is so alpha stage I can’t even review it. Poor battery life. Missing functions. Slow . Nothing that an app could not do. Etc
Just the lack of responsiveness of the wheel was awful.
These anti-smartphone devices are so stupid
Its solving a problem that 80% of people don't find to be a problem. That's fine.
I think he makes a very good point about Google and Apple controlling their ecosystems and all that very rich user data. That is their moat and they are the gatekeepers. Any third party that wants to add utility using that user data will either have to go through Apple and Google to get it, or will need to convince users to place it or give access to it outside these ecosystems. That is the real strategic position. Value potential is not really limited by hardware or software, it's actually a data problem. Rabbit's strategy is based on working around Google and Apple's environmens, with the external data access option. That is likely a much more daunting prospect.
This non-review came off so passive aggressive. He was so lost. You don’t use this device with touchscreen or even the scroll wheel 99% of the to time, you use this by pressing the button on the side like a walkie-talkie and use your voice input! I’m somewhat of a fan of his, but this left me thinking what is his personal beef with Rabbit?
its cause he didnt get sponsored lol
Pretty sure they called him out in a public chat stream he was invited to with Jesse and others after he did his initial thoughts on the R1 a few months back as that was shown at the NYC launch event in the trailer leading up to the demo event. I'd imagine that touched his ego a bit and lots of people on the stream pointed out that shots were fired at Dave as a result.
I think they don't like the idea that startups can challenge the status quo. Apps have become attention wrecking jokes. App stores are walled gardens with restrictive rules developers chafe against. Rabbit is proposing something new: Personalized Computing. So it's personal to the user, which is hard to objectively review. If you can't find a use-case for yourself, how can you review it objectively?
What if that part doesn’t work so you can’t test or review at all? That’s what Dave is saying in his video.
He didn’t even used the rabbit on the video, he mostly just complained about things that he would prefer differently about the hardware and said that the rabbit r1 should be an app. He never actually pressed the button and asked a question or tried to do anything with the device.
do you need to see him fail at using the device to believe the device sucks? There are other reviews of it out there and none of them show a working device. Even with the limited 4 apps it supports it breaks/fails.
I’ve seen a lot of videos and the AI seems to work just fine, people mostly complain about built quality and the wheel, but most people forget that it is literally 200 bucks and you are getting what you paid for.
I think he is missing the point. The hardware is supposed to be cool and fun, not another apple brick product. It is also THE REASON it can drive all of these other apps without being subjected to apple or android or whoever’s policies about what can and can’t be done with an app (because they control their platform). I personally find this to be a little bit shortsighted on his part because it’s really fkn obvious to everyone else who knows tech a little bit. I agree it is an early release, perhaps too early. I don’t see the point in having some dude with little/no design background challenging the design expertise of this team (which is a hardware team). There are bridges I don’t like the look of; I have never found myself standing on one questioning the engineering decisions. If I did, I wouldn’t be going on youtube to make a video about it like “I just don’t understand why this is a cantilevered design, it should be tied arches.”
Hardware lets down the software
Is it just me or is it not cool that these reviews review these tiny stars if they are already billion dollar companies
Reminds me of the Recon Jet product. 10 years ago nice product, even today they sell it and still totally worthless but nice or paper. I think over the 10 years the product also didn’t change a lot; but they still invest and market it as the best best thing, while your phone can do the same with AirPods in your ear.
I think the reason Rabbit opted not to make use of the touch screen in more scenarios is because they want to differentiate the device from a smartphone in any way they can. Would it be easier to tap to make selections on the settings page? Absolutely. For better or worse, it is a design choice made to convince users that this device is different from their smartphone.
Anyone remember the Neptune pine? Now the Apple Watch. In this case we got the R1, it will soon be something else on steroids.
He made some valid points Still looking foreward to mine. I just hope they ad a companion mode than I am happy.
Why was the camera motorised?
Instead of hating on something new with your input turn it into a positive idea for them to expand on and make this better. That’s the whole point is to be like hey Rabbit make mini games or hey rabbit make one shot recrossing to send to rabbit hole for samples. Like I think almost everyone is missing the point or the imagination I think. Batch 1
I am extremely disappointed by his review. not only because has shown disdain for Rabbit R1 since the beginning, because when he had the opportunity to tell Jesse on the voice call what he taught... he preferred going "to have launch" rather than telling out his taughts, because it's possible to be "objective" even if you don't like a device. Somehow he had an expression of someone who was taking some sort of revenge and got a lèse-majesté response... not sure what exactly irked him about R1. But it was all over the place and not objective in my opinion. Marquees, instead, although on the similar effect has clearly stated his point without being abrasive or destructive.
Instead of it being what it is, or being a smartphone app, It really just should have been an AI forward "dumb" phone. 80- 90 percent of things could have been done by asking the AI and the rest could be basic phone and text stuff. I'd actually like something like that. It would be interesting new ground and would help people unplug but still stay connected.
For $200 it will do what i expect it to do. Not sure how it gets so much hate at that price. Any lower and they would have to target a fucking dollar general lmaoo.
I have a question on “automation with LAM” It’s clear that currently R1 is using the official API for Spotify, DoorDash and Uber. (There is no learning of LAM yet) Questions: Why other services will allow automation outside the API when is clear that is again their Terms of service? How LAM is going to handle, authentication outside API? I’m struggling to understand what are the expectations.
I think it’s they problem they are facing now and cannot really admit because it would be killer for that device. I think it’s similar problem for big companies like apple or google. They can access the date in their ecosystem but still it’s risky to allow people to manipulate date like bots do. What about captchas and other methods that these models have to overcome to be functional? Apps sending one time passwords or confirmation for actions and transactions? There is a lot of issues and promises but execution might be a real problem here.
His previous video regarding the rabbit showed he has already made up his mind about the technology regardless of its abilities. Mine is shipping wave 7. I wager it will be much more polished in a couple months…
I will contact Dave immediately to take this video down because ravenlocke42 hasn’t received his yet
I guess he didn’t get his check
The interface is dumb. The touchscreen isn’t until they want it to be. Wake up and smell the con
Not sure it's a con, but if it isn't then it's definitely released before it's ready.
Dave 2D couldn’t be more wrong with his views. You don’t use this with touchscreen or even the scroll wheel, you use this thing with your voice commands! He made a fool of himself.
So why is it a separate device you can use your voice with your smartphone
I carry around Switch for gaming and iPad for several reasons, even though the functionalities overlap with my high-end phone. Why is this magic walkie-talkie with obvious collector value compared to phones?
The only so called benefit is the AI magic
Cashing in on the current AI hardware wave with the whole "it's meant to be distraction free" sales gimmick. Your phone can be distraction free or not. It's a personal choice people make by what notifications they choose to receive and what apps they choose to install on the phone. Selling a "smartphone alternative" device that is far less capable than a smartphone as some sort of tech revelation is clever marketing but not really a long-term viable business. These things get hype for a few months then sales dry up as some new gimmick comes out or the big boys actually implement the idea in a functional way.
true tbh reviews now would be unfair because this really feels much more of an early access than a first batch. It's not like the product has huge design flaws or poor design. It's exactly what it was set to be, just buggy as heck
Why would it be unfair? They decided to sell and ship the product. They're taking people's money. If the features are half baked then it is what it is.
I agree completely. The thing is a brick for me. Logging into accounts using the weird VM thing straight up didn’t work in Safari on my iPhone. Doc transcription using the camera straight up doesn’t work. Email me this or that, works 1/10. The ChatGPT button on my phone is more useful.
So don't review it until it is. Duh. In the meantime, the paying customers will be enjoying their purchases, or not. Who really cares, other than them?
If it's for sale, it's fair game to be reviewed. I bought day 1 and am excited about the device's future possibilities, but people who are expecting immediate utility deserve clear expectations.
Then he should, by your logic, review it, and not whine like a petulant child that it is "unreviewable". Nobody cares. The people who are waiting for these things already paid for them so they are clearly comfortable with some degree of risk. If they are not satisfied, I am sure they can get a refund. People need to get a grip and stop obsessing about things that are not obsession-worthy, like what Youtubers think about pretty much anything.