There were times once I wasn’t sure if Rabbit R1 was even real. An AI-powered device designed by Teenage Engineering got here out of nowhere and have become considered one of the largest stories at CES, promising a level of fun and fantasy that was way more fun than a number of the more egotistical AI corporations. CEO Jesse Lyu practically promised the world this $199 device.
Well, say it for Rabbit: it’s true. Last night I went to the elegant TWA Hotel in New York with several hundred reporters, creators and particularly enthusiastic R1 buyers. After a couple of hours in photo booths, specialty cocktails, and a rousing speech and demonstration by Lyu—during which he almost continuously referenced and joked concerning the Humane AI pin—all of us took our R1s home. I’ve been using mine since then and have some thoughts. And a couple of questions.
It could also be somewhat too big for some hands, however the R1 matches mine well enough.
From a hardware standpoint, the R1 screams “kind of a meh Android phone.” Here are the important thing specs: It’s about three inches tall and wide, and half an inch thick. It weighs 115 grams, which is about two-thirds heavier than the iPhone 15. It has a 2.88-inch screen, runs on a 2.3 GHz MediaTek MT6765 processor, has 128 gigabytes of memory and 4 gigabytes of RAM. It has a speaker on the back, two microphones on the highest, and a SIM card slot on the side, right next to the USB-C charging port. It is available in just one color, a shade that Rabbit calls “leuchtorange”, but is commonly called “light orange” or “luminous orange”. It’s definitely orange and definitely luminous.
At this point, one of the best ways I can describe the R1 is sort of a Picasso painting of a smartphone: it has many of the same parts, just a distinct layout. Instead of sitting on the highest or back, the R1’s camera sits in a cutout on the precise side of the device, where it could rotate the lens to face each towards and away from you.
R1 is sort of a smartphone painted by Picasso
After a couple of hours of playing with the device, I need to admit that it is kind of good. Not luxurious and even particularly upscale, just silly and fun. While the AI Pin Humane resembles a rigorously carved metal jewel, the R1 resembles an old-school MP3 player crossed with a fidget spinner. The wheel spins somewhat stiffly for my liking, but smooth enough, the screen is somewhat blurry but okay, and pressing the primary motion button is satisfying.
When I first got the device and connected it to Wi-Fi, it immediately asked me to create an account with Rabbithole, R1’s online portal. I did this, scanned the QR code with R1 to sync it, and immediately updated the firmware. I spent this time logging into the one 4 third-party services R1 currently connects to: Spotify, Uber, DoorDash, and Midjourney.
The Rabbithole app is used to administer your logins and look at your notes. This takes some work.
Once all the pieces was able to go, I began talking to R1. So far, it’s done a solid job of answering basic AI questions: it gave me lots of good details about this week’s NFL draft, found some restaurants in my area, and knew when Herbert Hoover was president. This is all pretty basic ChatGPT, and there’s some noticeable delay in retrieving responses, but I definitely prefer the interface to the Humane AI Pin – because there’s a screen and you’ll be able to see that something is running, so the AI delays do not feel as infinite.
Since there’s a screen, AI lags don’t seem as infinite
However, almost immediately I began encountering things that the R1 simply cannot do. It cannot send emails or create spreadsheets, although Lyu has been demonstrating each features for months. Rabbithole can also be woefully unfinished, to the purpose where I attempted tapping on the phone and as a substitute it moved the cursor about half a second after each tap. It’s reminder that the entire thing runs on a virtual machine storing all of your applications and credentials, which still gives me security pause.
Oh, and here’s my favorite thing that is happened on the R1 to this point: I’ve connected it to my Spotify account, and it is a feature I’m particularly enthusiastic about. I asked for “Beyoncé’s new album,” and the device excitedly got here up and located “Crazy in Love,” a version of the artist’s lullaby “Rockabye Baby!” So close and to this point. It doesn’t appear to find a way to seek out my playlists or skip songs. But once I said, “Play 1975,” all the pieces worked effective and quickly. (By the best way, the speaker may be very poor quality for an Android phone. You’ll need to use that Bluetooth connection.)
The R1’s Vision feature, which uses the camera to discover objects within the scene around you, seems to work well so long as you simply need a listing of objects within the scene. The device cannot take photos or record videos and doesn’t appear to find a way to do the rest with what it sees.
The R1 has a camera, but it surely’s not particularly useful yet.
When you are not doing anything, the time and a bouncing rabbit head logo appear on the screen. When you press and hold the side button to provide a command, the time and battery disappear and the rabbit’s ears perk up as whether it is listening. It’s very cute! The overall interface is easy and text-based, but it surely’s odd in places: for instance, it isn’t at all times obvious find out how to get back, and also you only see a line or two of text on the very bottom of the screen, even when you’ve to read all the paragraph of the response.
Rabbit’s roadmap is ambitious: Lyu has spent the previous couple of months talking about all of the things R1’s so-called “large operating model” can do, including learning and using the apps. At yesterday’s event, he talked about opening up the USB-C port on the device to permit using accessories, keyboards, and more. It will all come…eventually. Supposedly. For now, the R1 feature set is far simpler. You can use your device to play music, get answers to questions, translate speech, take notes, call an Uber, and more.
The back of the R1 houses the speaker, scroll wheel, and camera. And fingerprints.
This means there are still lots of things the R1 cannot do, and so much I still have to test. (By the best way, if you should know anything, let me know!) I’m particularly inquisitive about battery life, the power to work on a foul connection, whether it warms up over time, and the way it handles more complex tasks than simply trying to find information and ordering chicken nuggets. But for now, it looks like this thing is attempting to look less like a smartphone killer and more just like the beginnings of a useful companion. That’s probably as ambitious because it is sensible right away – although the people of Lyu and Rabbit have lots of big guarantees they must ultimately keep, and so they do not have lots of time to do it.
Photography: David Pierce / The Verge
Credit : www.theverge.com