You can ask the new AI-powered Rabbit R1 gadget to do pretty much anything you’d normally do with some combination of apps on your smartphone, according to Rabbit’s fascinating keynote at CES 2024.
You can ask it to explain something, call an Uber, order a meal delivery or even book a fairly complex vacation itinerary, to name a few examples.
And unlike a would-be iPhone replacement like the Humane Ai Pin, Rabbit R1 comes with a screen and costs just $199 with no subscription necessary.
Update: Rabbit noted it sold out its R1 units on day one of sales, moving 10,000 units. See the company’s tweet below.
Voice-activated Rabbit R1 device runs on Rabbit OS and its ‘Large Action Model’
In an engrossing keynote presented Tuesday at CES 2024 in Las Vegas (watch below), Rabbit founder and CEO Jesse Lyu demonstrated what Rabbit R1 and its operating system — Rabbit OS and its “Large Action Model” (LAM), as opposed to ChatGPT’s large language model — can do.
And it can do plenty, according to Rabbit’s claims and its demo. Humane, which released a damp and lifeless introductory video last November for its $699 Ai Pin (plus $24 per month subscription), could have learned a thing or two from Rabbit about making modest claims while showing robust functionality.
When we started building r1, we said internally that we'd be happy if we sold 500 devices on launch day. In 24 hours, we already beat that by 20x!
10,000 units on day 1!
Second batch available now at https://t.co/R3sOtVWoJ5
Expected delivery date is April – May 2024. pic.twitter.com/XqaHqqk36L— rabbit inc. (@rabbit_hmi) January 10, 2024
Lyu explained how talking to the cute little Rabbit R1 can simply replace most of your futzing with apps on any platform and device to get things done. LAM knows how to use apps and doesn’t concern itself with which OS you’re on. Unlike ChatGPT, it can complete a task, not just provide information. What’s more, you can further train Rabbit R1 to do complex new tasks. And it costs $199 without a subscription.
“Things like ChatGPT are extremely good at understanding your intentions, but could be better at triggering actions,” Lyu said in his keynote address, talking about how LAM gets away from app-based OS. “We first set out to understand how apps are structured, and more importantly, how humans interact with them. We wanted to find a way for our AI to trigger actions on behalf of users across all environments. We use LAM to bring AI from words to action.”
Watch the Rabbit keynote video
A compact device with a screen and a camera
Rabbit designed the R1 in collaboration with Teenage Engineering. The standalone Rabbit R1, which includes a 2.88-inch touchscreen, takes up about half the space of an iPhone and has rounded edges.
It features a rotating camera that serves as its “rabbit eye,” meaning you can show the AI something you want to learn about, or simply take a photo or video. A scroll wheel that also works as a button helps you navigate and, when you hold it down, allows you to talk to the device’s built-in assistant. Inside Rabbit R1 sits a 2.3GHz MediaTek processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB of storage. It also includes a “rabbit hole” web portal.
As Lyu says in the video, R1 is a simple little computer, but LAM’s ability to understand you and the tools you use unlocks a large amount of functionality. It’s not about replacing your iPhone, as Lyu said in his video, but it’s intriguing as an app controller for anyone who likes talking to their devices. And how it develops in the future is anyone’s guess.
Photo: Rabbit
You can preorder Rabbit R1 now. Lyu said the device should ship around Easter, which falls on March 31 this year.
Where to preorder: Rabbit.tech
We originally published this post on January 10, 2024, and republished it on January 11 with news that Rabbit R1 sold out on its first day of sales.
