Do you hate apps? Jesse Lyu hates apps. No less than, that was my takeaway after my first chat with the founding father of Rabbit Inc., a brand new AI startup debuting a pocket-friendly gadget known as the R1 at CES 2024. As an alternative of taking out your smartphone to finish some activity, looking for the proper app, after which tapping round inside it, Lyu desires us to only ask the R1 by way of a push-to-talk button. Then a collection of automated scripts known as “rabbits” will perform the duty so you’ll be able to go about your day.
The R1 is a red-orange, squarish gadget concerning the dimension of a stack of Submit-It notes. It was designed in collaboration with the Swedish agency Teenage Engineering. (Lyu is on TE’s board of administrators.) The R1 has a 2.88-inch touchscreen on the left facet, and there is an analog scroll wheel to the proper of it. Above the scroll wheel is a digital camera that may rotate 360 levels. It is known as the “Rabbit Eye”—when it’s not in use, the digital camera faces up or down, a de facto privateness shutter—and you’ll make use of it as a selfie or rear digital camera. Whereas you need to use the Rabbit Eye for video calls, it’s not meant for use like a standard smartphone digital camera; extra on this later.
{Photograph}: Rabbit AI
{Photograph}: Rabbit AI
On the proper edge is a push-to-talk button you press and maintain to present the R1 voice instructions, and there’s a 4G LTE SIM card slot for fixed connectivity, that means it doesn’t have to pair with some other gadget. (You may as well join the R1 to a Wi-Fi community.) It has a USB-C port for charging, and Rabbit claims it’ll final “all day” on a cost.
The R1 prices $199, although you’ll must think about the price of a month-to-month mobile connectivity invoice too, and it’s important to set that up your self. Preorders begin at present, and it ships in late March.
{Photograph}: Rabbit AI
