today I get a unique opportunity to check out a product from a company that
Marquez brownley killed that's right we're going to be having a look at the
rabbit R1 a product that realistically you already know kind of sucks but what
you don't know is how it will uniquely suck for me I've been curious about this
thing ever since I heard about it back at CES of this year an AI assistant that
I carry around with me but perhaps more useful than the Humane pin and also at a
more reasonable price price it's just $200 and the stick is pretty
straightforward it's supposed to be a chat GPT AI enabled device that acts as
an intermediary between your voice and your phone allowing you to use voice
control even with applications that don't inherently support them the design
is delightfully teenage engineering looking which makes sense because
teenage engineering designed it maybe should have left it for the adults uh B
based on the perception this thing has gotten but hey that's a whole other conversation it charges via USBC it has
a 1,000 mAh battery in it that's good for a few hours and takes about 45
minutes to charge although they do claim to be working on this it's got an array
microphone up here one button one dial
one 360° camera and I guess that rotates and
a touchcreen let's go ahead and fire it up shall we really nothing else in the
Box no charging cable no Wallmart no nothing huh I mean it does come with
what it appears is this like a water resistant box or is it just a fancy
looking box it's just fancy looking okay
um neat props to the rabbit team by the way forgetting out ah head of the
nickname rabbit hole for anyone who carries one of these things around uh
the rabbit hole instead is their portal where you manage your relationship with
rabbit OS and with the companion device itself rabbit OS by the way it turns out
is basically Android and the rabbit it turns out is basically an app that runs
on Android as for why it couldn't have just been an app on your phone have they
offered up a statement about that ah system security which kind of makes
sense for something that you are giving basically unfettered access to your apps
to allow it to do things like book uh
travel engagement for you with Uber or order food for you or tweet for you uh
it can't tweet for you yet can it I know that's one of the things that they had
kind of talked about it being able to do at some point but I guess that was hard
all right let's play with it shall we huh wait so this is a touchcreen but
you can't just
really and you're running Android so you
went out of your way to make it so I couldn't interact
with this thing with touch well you can sometimes
huh all right we're off to a good start
brightness hold ah oh well that's
ergonomic neat I was legitimately kind of excited
about this thing when I heard about it I knew it would suck but I was excited
about the idea of just being able to sort of Yap at something and essentially
have uh you know a standalone Auto
hotkey thing that was piped into chat GPT was kind of how I imagined it and I
think that's still kind of the vision that they're selling for it for the future right if only it could connect to
the network failed do I have options other than try
again I do not try again then I
shall ah rabbit OS I don't know how I
got to the settings I was I was cleaning it on my shirt oh do you shake it to get
to settings that's hilarious it's
cute failed why don't we try Ye Old restart
you shouldn't have a glossy surface for a scroll wheel you kind of slip on it a
little bit but like that's the least stupid thing about the user interface is
it ambidextrous can you like flip it and use it this way if not that would kind
of suck oh well sucks to be left-handed I guess wow we've used up like 5% % of
battery just trying to connect to the network oh right I shake
it okay let's oh God how do I turn it
off
now oh man oh no all right Network how
do I reconfigure it
okay Serenity Now
I know why they called it rabbit every time you're using it you're like
rabbit I've encountered teenage engineering stuff I've never been
compelled to buy any of it because it all just seems really expensive for very
limited utility no offense like I want things to do something like this very
teenage engineering looks really cool why though you know it's like oh cuz
it's cool oh all right okay well let's
try
connecting oh my god well this is better
than not having a keyboard at all are you going to keep you're going to keep showing me how to do okay there it goes
wow that took a minute oh wow it doesn't
obscure what you're typing at all there isn't even an option to hide passwords
as you enter them fascinating hey we're
connected wow Bluetooth what what do you connect to like do you connect to like
your earphones or what I mean is it does
it connect to your phone via Bluetooth oh yeah do is there an app it just does
stuff oh I assumed it would connect to your phone and it would kind of Auto
hotkey your phone it just does stuff oh
that's
terrifying oh my god
really that's the maximum speed at which
you can cycle through these numbers
do not come into my life purporting to be a device that saves me time and then
proceed to waste it speaking of things not entirely
welcome in my life this is brought to you by dbrand dbrand actually partnered
with rabbit ahead of the launch to design cute little screen protectors
just for the rabbit R1 and in fact at their launch event they even gave out
debrand screen protectors with the units that they gave out at the launch dbrand
also has protectors for all kinds of useful devices like Nintendo game
consoles controllers laptops iPads
iPhones other pads other phones you can find them at short.com not even that
short I mean my trip to Japan I seemed pretty normal height just saying enough
fooling around though Bill apparently configured it with all of his personal
accounts so uh where should we send him
book an Uber to LT Labs
the ride share status is currently unavailable apologies for the
inconvenience please try again later were you expecting that to work I never
tried it never tried it okay well it didn't work uh who are tricks
for the trick Cal is typically marketed towards children as a fun and colorful
breakfast option can you do an image search I can assist with an internet
search what would you like me to search for I'd like you to take a picture and
then tell me what something is I'm unable to take pictures or provide
visual information as the camera function is not currently enabled how
else may I assist you today what do you mean the camera function's not enabled
oh my God the camera function's not
enabled don't let me once again do not come into my life
telling me that you are going to provide natural interaction shortcuts to
get things done and you can't even turn on your camera when I ask you to turn on
your camera like this is a thing everyone's noticed about this right
probably probably yeah I don't know I haven't watched any videos about it I've
intentionally cloistered myself on this one where can I buy this mouse pad let
me take a look this appears to be a decorative
wall hanging or art piece not a mouse pad given the the nature of the item I
don't believe you would be able to purchase this as a mouse pad where can I
buy this mouse pad I apologize but I do not see a mouse or a bed in the image
provided the thing in the center of this image is a mouse pad this is not a mouse
pad but rather a glass or transparent tabletop with a colorful abstract design
on it the design geometric shape many
manufacturers offer a range of sizes features and designs to suit different
creative applications you can't tell it to shut
up it just talks until it's done who
does this thing think it is me on the land show okay fine let's try something
wow this camera is not very good um
okay who are you looking at right now let me
see the image shows a person a man
looking straight at the camera he has short light colored hair and is wearing
a black T-shirt the background includes some geometric shapes and lighting
elements suggesting this may be a home or Studio setting so it can't search for
people good Lord what can it do we're
down to 82% battery wow play some super cool music
on my Spotify make the ladies think I'm super cool for the music I'm listening
to getting the music going now
nice is it going to is it going to play
music did it just crash double click does not open the camera
anymore like I can open
oh here maybe it's just quiet maybe it's quiet media let's
go no man that's not quiet how much
funding did these guys raise what is even happening right now
is it just is it broken okay well here let's reboot it let's reboot it no let's
power it off and then wait for it
nonsense and then power it back on network connection lost
jeez play music that will make the ladies think I am cool okay starting the
music player
now oh it's just broken this did two
updates today and it both of them took a long time well that's something it did
today you know what the reality of it is I'm sure that there are plenty of
talented designers and Engineers who worked on this product and uh
realistically they have got to know that it's not ready yet and so the only
reason that I can think of that I'm holding this right now is that the money
that's involved is expecting some kind of return and if money wasn't so
impatient it would have known that the better thing to do would be to hold on
to this for a little bit longer until they've had time to let her cook cuz I
do see the potential but I don't see any
of the execution in the version that I'm holding in my hand right now I also see
some sort of just generally terrible terrible ideas where they need to get
out from inside their own buttholes and
understand that you know clicking and sliding and clicking on things with the
touchcreen is just common sense and needs to be a thing that you can do but
you know overall there's nothing inherently terrible about the idea it's
just obviously a complete piece of right now let's just hope that it doesn't
multiply like uh real rabbits just kidding it will man the amount of AI
shovelware that's going to be hitting this desk over the next year or two it's
going to be a sight to behold it has like three jobs order me an Uber order
me door Dash and play music those are
the only validated use cases with the bloody thing and it it couldn't do two
of them mid journey is the fourth yeah I
saw that mid Journey what even would I do what would I do with mid Journey on
this thing like look at it on my tiny little screen I have a phone in my
pocket like are you kidding me right now this is my this is my ancient crappy
phone and it's that much bigger like you got to be kidding me see
people are going to be watching this going like oh that line is what an but like if I told you anything other than
what a piece of crap this thing is I would be scamming you I'd be complicit
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