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Recently, a small device has taken us by surprise: its name is the Rabbit R1and with a screen less than 3 inches, it promises to be a kind of digital assistant powered by artificial intelligence to take care of many basic tasks on a daily basis, from ordering an Uber to helping us decide what to eat.
It is a device that It looks like something out of an episode of Black Mirror, but without the horror. An idea that a few years ago would have sounded futuristic, but currently it feels so real and so close that in just 4 days more than 40,000 people have already reserved one, even though there are still months before it goes on sale. And there are certainly good reasons to be curious about one of these AI gadgets.
It looks like a Tamagotchi, but it’s closer to Her’s device than a virtual pet
The first month of 2024 has not even ended and we have already heard the words “artificial intelligence” countless times. This is something that has been happening for a couple of years, with more and more companies and manufacturers integrating AI into their products and devices, whether through conversational chatbots or useful tools based on machine learning.
And with artificial intelligence I mean precisely that, practical, real and useful uses, beyond the typical curiosity of “make me a picture of a cat playing guitar.” Companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google have developed AI solutions that make it possible to facilitate the daily lives of users, summarizing texts, answering questions fluidly through a kind of conversation, and taking care of more and more routine tasks on the mobile, or helping us communicate through real-time translation of calls, as is the case with the new Galaxy S24, just to mention a few examples.
Rabbit R1 also promises to be a useful AI-based tool. With a 2.88-inch screen, a camera that can rotate 360 degrees to analyze its surroundings, a button and a rotary knob, this device You can access apps and perform actions using simple voice commandsand all that for a considerably low price.
This little guy, which looks like the evolution of a Tamagotchi, has a technology that the company, Rabbit, has named “Large Action Model” (LAM), and which, as they explain, allows the device toUse applications as if a human were using them, so to speakafter the human asks R1 to perform some task using voice.
Rabbit explains it using a couple of scenarios as an example: the user tells R1 “order an Uber for 6 people to go home”, and the device understands that what it should do is: access the Uber app, enter the address and, more importantly, select a type of service and car appropriate for more than 4 people. Another example is that the R1 You can use your camera to see what’s inside the user’s refrigerator and suggest recipes to prepare using the ingredients you have on hand.
“Shut up, and take my money.”
The device has another great attraction: it is considerably economical. Its pre-sale price is only $199, a very tempting price that has encouraged many more people and technology enthusiasts to become “early adopters”, those first users to test the R1 technology and its capabilities. It is a very interesting price for a completely new and innovative device, especially in a world where new technology proposals that promise to be the future usually cost thousands of euros.
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Jessy Lyu, CEO of Rabbit, announced on his X (Twitter) account that In just four days more than 40,000 units have been sold, and at the time of writing these lines they are working on the fifth batch of pre-sales. The first units are expected to reach their owners between the months of March and April in the United States, but they also ship to Spain. The fifth batch can be reserved from its official website, although it will take a little longer to arrive.
These types of innovative ideas They often attract the attention of technology giants, so we could see larger and better-known companies create their own similar proposals in the future, on the Rabbit R1, depending on the success and interest that the device continues to generate. This is a reflection from my colleague Javier Pastor in SamaGame, and I completely agree with what he says.
