Rabbit, a new startup tech company, has just unveiled its first device – the Rabbit R1 at CES 2024. The R1 is a dedicated virtual assistant powered by AI housed in an adorable orange handheld device designed by Teenage Engineering.
Rabbit R1
The R1 has the footprint of Teenage Engineering with a very simplistic yet functional design in a bright orange coat. It features a 2.88-inch vertical touchscreen, a small analog scroll wheel on the right of the panel, and a 360-degree rotational camera or the ‘Rabbit eye’ above the scroll wheel.
The device also has two mics, a speaker, and a ‘Push-to-Talk’ button on the right. You can also trigger an on-display keyboard if you shake the R1.
What does the Rabbit R1 do?
The R1 is a virtual assistant which you can talk to by pressing and holding the button which triggers Rabbit OS to start listening. It has a stylized cute rabbit head, the company’s visual representation of the AI.
Rabbit Founder and CEO Jesse Lyu featured some of its features including being able to answer your questions, playing music, booking you an Uber, looking for tickets for a specific trip and making an itinerary, and even making a recipe by showing what’s in your fridge via the Rabbit eye. Well, at least that’s what the company showcased at its keynote.
Rabbit OS uses what the company calls a Large Action Model (LAM) to handle those tasks, which is what Lyu pitches as its major innovation. LAM is designed to take actions on interfaces instead of doing so via APIs or apps. Simply put, the model can be trained to carry out almost any task through its user interface.
Lyu showcased this by teaching R1 how to generate an image using Midjourney via Discord. From here, Rabbit OS can repeat the task.
The company founder also assured us that it doesn’t store any third-party credentials and doesn’t track your data. Instead, to access apps like Spotify, it redirects you to the log-in page of the app and leaves authentication to the respective apps.
It isn’t certain though what the battery capacity is like but it is confirmed to support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE.
How much does the Rabbit R1 cost?
The Rabbit R1 is priced at USD 199 (around PHP 10,900) and ships on Easter 2024. However, it is now available for pre-order via the official website.
*Prices in PHP are direct conversions using the exchange rate at the time the content was published. These are not indicative of actual local pricing and don’t include additional costs like taxes, etc.
Ram found his love and appreciation for writing in 2015 having started in the gaming and esports sphere for GG Network. He would then transition to focus more on the world of tech which has also began his journey into learning more about this world. That said though, he still has the mentality of "as long as it works" for his personal gadgets.
