Hacker News Reader

Comment by tasuki | Hacker News Reader

And the main question remains unanswered: why do they sell a whole device rather than an app?

The eye catching hardware is what made this project interesting. Would we be talking about this at all if it was just an app?

So it's not really something intended to be efficient and useful, it's a conversation piece.

Have you looked at other teenage engineering products? None of them are in any way the most practical way to accomplish something.

The OP-1 is genuinely useful. It might not be good value, but I’m not sure anything does the job it does nicer.

Sure, I have no doubt that someone can make good use out of it. But clearly it isn't meant to be the most practical option, in the sense that the same things can be accomplished without a 2k$ device.

And then there's the K.O. II, which is somehow inexpensive, nice, and useful.

That's their reason to make it a stand-alone device. What is my reason to want it to be a stand-alone device?

Too many layers of stubborn ppl acting confused at this point. The hardware is the hardware because they wanted to make hardware. People bought they hardware because they wanted hardware.

? I'm not confused about anything, I'm explaining why it's a terrible decision. People aren't buying it (at least not now that it's actually out and reviewed, pre orders aside), not just because it's stand-alone hardware but that certainly isn't helping matters.

You're right, and I agree vehemently about the poor quality as well as if you're planning on taking a big swing, better to start with an app.

Bizarrely, my 5 year plan was exactly what they did, but step 1 is release a cross-platform app and get it reliable as possible while waiting for an AI level up.

Releasing an app, especially when they're trying to get ahead of the game and are staffed and funded to do so, would beg the question "Why do just an app? It's the same as ChatGPT, which is free."

The reviews are bad, they're certainly not on the precipice of selling a million units. but they had a ton of preorders and the strategy worked, they're in the conversation, names out there, and they'll be forever associated with AI hardware. A GPT wrapper app with the same level of coverage would get the same general reaction we're seeing now. A GPT wrapper app with the coverage a wrapper app gets would get much less attention.

There is unlikely any reason for you, someone who spends his time posting anonymously on an Internet forum, to want this.

But there is population out there who like to go outside and show off their fancy things to other real, live people. They are the intended audience.

Yes, it very well may be that this is not fancy enough to win anyone over, but such is the nature of business. Not everything is a hit. Even successful companies like Apple and Google that you would think should know with certainty what people want have had their fair share of flops. You really don't know until you try.

While I'm not interested in this device either, you could make this argument for many standalone devices. Why does Nintendo keep selling their own devices rather than putting their games on phones and PCs? They think having it as a physical, distinct device offers something that a phone app doesn't, which is pretty on brand for them.

Now, whether or not the buyers will agree with their thinking is another story.

I think Nintendo puts game-specific hardware in their portables. A phone wouldn't necessarily have the same GPU. Also perhaps they have more battery than a phone? I don't know, but it seems plausible Nintendo has actual reasons.

Nintendo puts an 2014 ARM chip + Tegra X1 in their Switch.

Possibly not, but is this thing a sales success? I haven't seen any compelling positive discussions of it yet.

You can buy fully functional Android phones for less than $200, with better cameras, and battery life, and larger screens, and… well not a software-locked touch screen

Yeah it's just marketing. If it becomes a success they will sell their service as an app for sure.

It's just much easier to stand out with a beautiful hardware design than the 200th AI app released this month. And you can hardly buy anything from teenage engineering at this price point ;) Except the playdate which is much cooler.

But yeah it should have been an app.

What whole app could completely take over for Siri or whatever Google’s version is, with a single button press launching the app and putting you directly into command mode, at any time, without unlocking anything first?

I don’t blame Rabbit for wanting to control the hardware they run on.

Android lets you choose which digital assistant app to use. Settings > Apps > Default apps > Digital assistant app. Stock Android will have this preconfigured to Google Assistant, but it's designed to be swappable.

The EU are almost certainly going to push this onto Apple too once they realise the big tech co's are going to use their browser and phone distribution to push their new LLM based assistant products to market

Jesse Lyu (rabbit ceo) mentioned that they wouldn’t wait for os to avail and release sdks as it will take many years (paraphrasing).

The idea sounds I mean there’s Alexa (which is way cheaper) and shipping an AOSP with a Chinese vendor hardware is indeed manageable — but do we really want to have a ChatGPT-only 24/7? I highly doubt that, at least for me. I’m probably only chronically online for the social aspects of that, but had my interactions been only to an llm agent, I don’t think I’ll be using it that much.

I like to think 5 or 10 years later in the future and see how us and the newer generations would interact with technology but I find it difficult to envision that would be rabbit r1 device

The question was somewhat answered in TFA

> We didn’t bother testing out any other functionality, such as Spotify integration, Vision, etc., but we wouldn’t be surprised if some of them didn’t work. After all, the Rabbit R1’s launcher app is intended to be preinstalled in the firmware and be granted several privileged, system-level permissions — only some of which we were able to grant — so some of the functions would likely fail if we tried.

Not this case, but there are cases where convenience of a custom device is nicer compared to a smartphone(custom buttons/instant access, physical feedback of custom controls). For example with cameras, if you want to control shutter speed/iso etc, a camera with custom mapped buttons and wheels will be more convenient compared to a smartphone

Reply on news.ycombinator.com