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Comment by aeurielesn | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I still don't understand the appeal of this product. I've always got a "one-time quick-cash hustle" video out of it and I can't trust it.

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It's not a very good cash hustle if people actually use it. From what I can tell, it's a one time $200 payment and you can use the LLM indefinitely. If the device costs $100 to produce and ship that's only $100 left to cover compute... forever.

It seems they want the compute to run on device, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now[0]. I don't know the specs of the device, but pretty sure it'd have to cost more than $200 to run an LLM locally.

edit: 128 gigs of storage and four gigs of RAM. For llama3-8b (the smallest llama3 model) you need at least 8GB of RAM.

0 - https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/18/24043490/rabbit-r1-ai-per...

i believe its a 12 month license to use the llm, but still, that’s nearly 200 by itself, so it seems like a sensible option to get both.

It is most definitely selling at a loss and trying to generate enough hype to get acquired.

I highly doubt Teenage Engineering is looking to be acquired.

Teenage Engineering aren't the ones who would be acquired, they just did the industrial design work on contract for Rabbit. The same way TE designed the Playdate but it's not a TE product.

Its amazing TE has such a brand that people think these are their products.

You'd definitely know if it were TE's own product because the price would have an extra zero on the end.

I doubt anyone outside of a handful of HN commenters knows Teenage Engineering.

Anyone interested in synthesizers knows TE.

Anyone interested in demystifying TE should look at the PC case they designed. They sell polished turds, they just didn't polish that one enough for it not to stand out as a complete piece of crap.

This is pretty unfair. They sell sometimes pretty exclusively priced stuff like their field table - more than the case. But with these you are buying aesthetics. And i would much rather have case this cool looking if i had it in visible place. They are one of the few companies recognized for their design that is something AND their audio stuff might also be expensive but is really good.

Forever as in: as long as they feel like/are capable of keeping their servers running.

I can't think of a single hyped up pre-order that worked out. Either

* Everyone else can buy it when the pre orders are delivered

* Due to monetary constraints, regular orders are actually shipped before pre-orders

* The device is nothing like it was promised

* The device doesn't exist

The intentions are good (funding without VCs) but I rather the VCs lose money than consumers

I would never purchase this myself, but it seems most people are buying it as a toy or trinket, not as a productivity device.

I can't judge them too much considering how much actual grownup money I've spent on Legos...

In 20 years your Legos will still function just fine, can be re-used, can be passed down to new kids or new owners, can be integrated in other things etc...

In 5 years this thing will be poisoning some small trash picking child in Africa somewhere.

Considering their prior bit was NFTs, I wouldn’t feel too surprised by that feeling.

s/video/vibe?

You're correct. I didn't even notice the typo until now!

i apparently ordered one impulsively while i was… in an altered state, let’s say. (in my defense, iirc i wanted to evaluate it as a device for a family member with a neurodegenerative disease to use for some daily online activities…)

based on that appeal, i’d say you’re probably correct in that assessment.

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