By Zoe Kleinman, Know-how editor
BBCI’ve simply spent the previous few days with the most recent gadget billed as having the ability to tackle the smartphone: the Rabbit R1.
I needed to see if I might think about this transportable, synthetic intelligence (AI) digital assistant sooner or later changing into what my cellphone is now – one thing I can’t reside with out.
You’ll be able to see the pondering behind it: tens of millions of individuals have performed with AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
On condition that success with software program, it appears the Subsequent Huge Factor for the tech giants is to do the identical with {hardware}, and discover methods to bodily embed AI instruments.
Microsoft is doing it with laptops, whereas Apple is rumoured to be following go well with with the following iPhone.
However there are additionally folks making an attempt to provide you with a completely new class of gadget too – which is the place the R1 is available in.
Rabbit says its new gadget is “an intuitive companion” that may “deal with on a regular basis digital duties”.
A conveyable AI-driven assistant that may enable you as you go about your day, get you off your cellphone and again into the true world… you may see how that may doubtlessly be a helpful gadget.
The issue although is there have already been a few comparable merchandise launched – and the fact has fallen nicely in need of the hype.
Take the Humane pin – a brooch-like, AI-driven gadget.
US tech reviewer Marques Brownlee, who has 18 million followers on YouTube, captured the temper when he described it because the worst product he’d ever reviewed
The R1 is now obtainable within the UK and Europe. Does it fare any higher? I am going to inform you his – and my – verdicts in a while.
However, first, let’s take a better look.
Simply ask it stuff
So let’s begin with what’s good about it.
The Rabbit R1 is a enjoyable little bit of {hardware}, in an period the place nothing is tactile any extra, a luminous orange sq. with an enormous display that you just positively received’t lose in your purse.
It’s obtained a button, a scroll wheel, and a digicam which you’ll see transfer from front-to-back, making a satisfying noise because it does.
And it’s inexpensive, priced at £159, with no subscription required.
However what are you purported to do with it?
Effectively, mainly, you may ask it stuff. It’s fairly restricted by way of anything in the intervening time.
There’s no social media, messaging, procuring, well being or banking – at the least for now. You’ll be able to check in to Spotify or Apple Music accounts, however you’d need a greater speaker than the in-built one.
And, randomly, you can even use Midjourney, the AI picture generator. That’s about it.
The Rabbit R1 efficiently instructed me the time, the climate forecast, gave me the appropriate instructions to my son’s faculty (after I instructed it my location), and swiftly translated some dialog from English into German.
It listed the highest 20 chess gamers of 2024 when my companion requested it who was the very best, taking the reply from an inventory on chess.com. Nevertheless it did higher than the Amazon Echo on this division – Alexa plumped for Garry Kasparov, who retired from common aggressive chess in 2005.
We requested it about a number of well-known conspiracy theories and it didn’t have interaction with them, and once I requested it who would win the following UK common election its response got here from the YouGov ballot of that day.
So sure – it’s good at getting stuff off the net. However so am I.
Is that this a flower?
It gave me images of the place I work – the BBC Scotland constructing in Glasgow – however it actually struggled to inform me the place to go for espresso.
The primary time I requested it stated “give me a second” after which shut down after 112 seconds of silence.
I attempted once more and this time it delivered pretty shortly, however of the 5 choices it listed, two of the espresso outlets had been 2.5 miles away, one had closed down and one I couldn’t discover in any respect on Google.
The closest it got here up with was 1.3 miles away – in actuality, the constructing is flanked by many choices, with two huge espresso chains minutes away by foot.
It will probably use the digicam to explain its environment – generally – however it hallucinated rather a lot.
It instructed me a vase of white peonies in my bed room contained yellow chrysanthemums, and confidently misidentified a plate of poppadoms as tortilla chips.
BBC/Rabbit IncOnce I pointed the digicam at myself it described me as an “older girl” (deep breaths), and when my son pulled his most dramatic, offended face, it described him as a boy with “a pleasant expression” (extra deep breaths).
Within the first hour we used up greater than 20% of the battery life.
In the meantime, all of your exercise is saved on an account within the cloud which is named your Rabbithole, and you may’t entry this on the gadget itself.
The Rabbit R1 has additionally confronted accusations that it’s primarily a glorified Android app, and tech journalist Mishaal Rahman from Android Authority even reported managing to put in the tech behind it onto a Google cellphone.
However the agency strongly denies this, saying that whereas there are some “unofficial emulators” round, its system is “very bespoke”.
There’s additionally a reasonably bizarre shadow hanging over the corporate behind the Rabbit R1, with allegations on-line that it’s a former NFT firm which rebranded with out honouring commitments to earlier buyers.
On this topic, Rabbit stated greater than 80% of its present workers joined the corporate after this level, and stated Mr Lyu has “a protracted historical past as an entrepreneur” and has been “concerned in a variety of initiatives over his profession”.
The decision is in
In the end, I’ve come away pondering that whereas it was enjoyable to do that gadget out, it doesn’t but do something I can’t do already, both with my cellphone or my very own eyes, and infrequently extra slowly.
Others agree: it has been referred to as “half-baked” and a tool that “fails at nearly every little thing” by reviewers.
And I promised to inform you what Marques Brownlee needed to say concerning the R1: “barely reviewable” was the title of his video about it.
The agency itself admits it’s a work in progress.
“Being an early start-up, it’s by no means about profitable or shedding – it’s all about survival,” stated Rabbit founder Jesse Lyu.
“In some methods, I’m pleased we’re getting the pushback and doubts now as a result of it’s pushing us to make an ever-improving and higher product.”
And do not count on the unflattering opinions of the R1 to cease the makes an attempt to infuse AI into {hardware}.
“I count on to see many extra units on this style over the following 18 months,” says smartphone business watcher Ben Wooden, from CCS Perception.
“Nonetheless, my guess is that the smartphone will transcend all these quirky merchandise for the foreseeable future – however that includes most of the AI-powered improvements promised on stand-alone units.”
That prediction appears like a very good one to me.
My cellphone does all of the stuff R1 can do, and a lot extra, plus it does it shortly and intuitively.
If something, this “smartphone killer” has made me admire the gadget it’s making an attempt to tackle much more.
