As I was packing up at the office, my mind was already set on booking an Uber with the Rabbit R1 to go to a meeting downtown. R1, a stylish-looking device that's about half the size of a traditional smartphone, was built for moments like these.
No need to tap through slides or filter columns in your phone app or browser window. A simple voice command to R1 directs a dedicated AI agent to complete tasks on your behalf. “Book an Uber to 123 ABC Street.” “Order a large vodka pizza at Via Ponte.” “Play Benson Boone's latest album.” In theory, this near-friction This process saves you time, effort, and clicks. In theory.
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By the time I got out and ordered R1 to book an Uber, I realized two things. R1 knows I'm at a bakery a few blocks away (and when I change the pickup address — only possible via voice) — it never updates to the new one ), the battery indicator has dropped to 94% since I unplugged my device 5 minutes ago. I put the little orange square in my left pocket, took my phone out of my right pocket, and opened the Uber app.
To be clear, the R1 does have a SIM card slot for LTE connectivity, but it's not meant to replace a smartphone. Rather, I'd like to think of this as an office internship that's still on its first day. They may not be the best at everything, but with time and training they have great potential.Oh, and they always wear ultra neon orange shirts to work, so you have To notice them.
Where the R1 excels from the get-go is in answering complex questions quickly, and it's clearly faster than the $700 Humane Ai Pin. I have a solid understanding of basic questions such as “What's the weather like?” Therefore, we will not discuss this in detail. Instead, I ask questions like, “Who won last night, the Celtics or the Heat? Who scored the most points, and what percentage of field goals did they make?” in quick succession. R1's initial response suggested the last time the two teams played was back in January, leading me to believe the knowledge was blocked, but on the second try He answered all three questions correctly. Strange, but impressive nonetheless.
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In some cases, the AI's response can be noticeably long, possibly due to my broad questions. Most of the time, after R1 gives what I consider a satisfactory answer, it continues rambling further details, requiring me to press the side button to silence it.
The R1 also excels at multimodal tasks, filming its surroundings (and itself) with a rotating 8MP camera and leveraging visual data to answer questions. From the top of an office building, we pointed the gadget at a series of skyscrapers in front of us and asked them to describe what they saw and what city they were in. He replied, “I see the following skyline in front of me.'' Skyscrapers and buildings, including the iconic One World Trade Center tower, are part of the New York City skyline with the Hudson River in the foreground. ”
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In another example, I pointed R1 to a bowl of ramen and asked how many calories it had. The AI couldn't give you an exact number because it couldn't pull all the necessary context from the 2D image, such as the size of the bowl or the ingredients used, but it generally estimates between 300 and 600 calories per serving. It showed me the range. , was close enough.
I also tested R1's translation capabilities with my colleague Kyle Kucharski, who speaks several languages, including Spanish and Russian. When you ask the Assistant to “translate,” he is immediately presented with a dedicated interface on a 2.8-inch screen, but it's functional enough. From delayed translations where the AI speaks lines after a few minutes, to conversations between two different languages where he only translates one language, this experience is full of bugs and likely won't inspire confidence in travelers .
When I tried to use Uber again this morning, R1 said that in addition to Uber, which was “under maintenance,” the only third-party services that worked on the device were DoorDash, Spotify, and Midjourney. Spotify and Midjourney worked pretty well for me, playing music tracks that matched the mood I noted down and generating images based on ideas that came to mind. (I wish I could send the generated images directly from R1 instead of downloading them from the hosted Discord.)
With DoorDash, you'll have to settle for 5 to 7 meal options per restaurant because the R1 screen doesn't show much more. But even when I settled on a standard cheese pizza because Rubirosa's famous tie-dye wasn't on the menu for some reason, the checkout screen kept showing me an error message over and over again.
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Finally, the R1 has major battery issues. On Thursday, I was able to use it for about 3 hours on a single charge. I noticed that while on standby, i.e. not using the device at all, the battery would drop by 10% to 15% within 30 minutes. Rabbit CEO Jesse Liu said: A fix is coming We will receive it as early as next week, so we will keep an eye on the improvements. For now, expect to charge your R1 two to three times a day, depending on the features you use.
final thoughts
Teasers and product announcements early in the year for AI devices like the Rabbit R1 and Humane Ai Pin are no surprise to me. Above all, the companies are in a race against time until tech giants like Apple and Google announce similar, if not more useful, AI software and services at I/O and WWDC in May and June, respectively. is unfolding. By then, if the voice assistants already in our pockets will be more powerful than ever, it will be much harder to sell secondary devices with the same functionality but with their own problems. .
Understandably, a significant portion of current AI hardware experiences are unsophisticated and require a group of users dedicated enough to pay to become beta testers.I everytime I object to purchasing products with the promise of future updates. nothing is guaranteed. However, if you're curious about what the future holds for AI gadgets, the Rabbit R1 might be the most appealing option on the market today.