Rabbit R1 brings back personal assistants with affordable price & AI

❘ Published: 2024-01-10T10:55:22

Rabbit

Rabbit R1 CES 2024

Rabbit R1 is a pocketable device that offers to bridge the gap between AI and hardware to reduce smartphone usage.

Remember the futuristic AI Pin introduced a few months back? While it looked stylish and something right out of a sci-fi movie, it just got a hot competitor at CES 2024.

At $199, the Rabbit R1 is priced at only a fraction of AI Pin. But it seems more practical and usable since it doesn’t rely on gestures and instead has a physical button to interact with the nifty gadget.

This compact mobile device can respond to questions asked, suggest itineraries, and even make the requisite bookings – something that both your existing smartphones and LLM chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard aren’t capable of.

Introducing r1. Watch the keynote.

Order now: https://t.co/R3sOtVWoJ5 #CES2024 pic.twitter.com/niUmjFvKvE
— rabbit inc. (@rabbit_hmi) January 9, 2024

Created to offer an app-less environment, the R1 has a physical push-to-talk button that can instantly play your favorite tracks from Spotify or book a taxi using Uber.

According to Rabbit’s Founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu, smartphones are no longer intuitive and force you to use a multitude of applications, one for each and everything. Further, to make things complex, these applications do not talk to each other; thus, your smartphone, rather than saving your time, end up wasting it, and according to Lyu, this is what Rabbit R1 looks to solve.

Teenage Engineering designed the orange-colored device R1, which looks similar to a retro gaming gadget. It has a 2.28-inch display, a speaker, a push-to-talk button, and a scroll wheel. It also has a camera that helps solve visual queries rather than capture social media-worthy images.

Powering the gadget is a 2.3Ghz MediaTek Helios P35 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. For connectivity, it has a SIM card slot and even has WiFi.

Physical AI assistant rather than a smartphone replacement

While the Rabbit R1 is an exciting device for people like me who want to reduce their screen time, it is not aimed to replace your smartphone, at least now.

It doesn’t have apps, but you can connect your applications to this assistant via its online portal called Rabbit Hole. This process could be cumbersome for many, especially when the gadget isn’t looking to become your primary go-to device.

The Rabbit R1 uses a large action model or LAM instead of LLM. The critical difference between the two, according to the company, is that LLM is made to offer information, while LAM takes it a step ahead and acts on the information.

However, it does show the alternate future of smartphones, which most smartphone makers would not prefer. Moreover, the CEO didn’t even attempt to demo a call using the R1 during the keynote, which makes spending $200 on this physical AI assistant a luxury.

Stay locked in on Dexerto for more CES 2024 coverage, where we expect new laptops, graphics cards, monitors, and more.