OpenAI's new device will be hockey puck-sized and cost over $300

Does anyone actually use ChatGPT’s voice mode? It seems technically impressive, but when I try using it, it feels… deeply uncomfortable talking to a machine like you would a person.

Treating it like you would a person feels silly: It’s not a person, it doesn’t have any life experience or anything interesting to say, it doesn’t have real opinions or anything worth talking about that isn’t a direct answer to your question. So having a “conversation” with it feels like I’m doing role-playing with a computer. And it gets into “weird” territory, fast.

But if you treat it like you would an LLM chatbot, to get specific answers to questions, or to explain something to you, it’s so. much. worse than having the answer on a screen for me to skim and reference directly. Either the answer is too brief to be helpful, or too long and it’s talking forever and I have to make it stop. I suppose certain highly specific questions that have brief and concise answers, it may be good at?

Maybe I just haven’t found the right use case for it yet. Or maybe my discomfort is just my introversion coming through, and normal people don’t have this problem.

I wonder what exact features this would provide that the mobile app cannot. I don’t wanna carry another device with me all the time

A device thats worse than the phone you already have, which is dead the second you stop paying your monthly OpenAI sub, and is useless if you decide you prefer other LLM provider. Where do we sign up?

Voice is almost always the worst, most frustrating interface.

It's going to be a phone, a screenless phone. Which is fine I guess, but only the obnoxious people that watch youtube on speaker with everyone giving them a death stare are going to use this. Maybe that's a bit too harsh, it will definately have a bluetooth connection for earbuds, so it might not be so grating. If they roll the data into the ChatGPT subscription, it will probably pick up a decent # of users. I can't imagine having a main device only use a voice interface though. Skimming an email visually is way more efficient than having an LLM summarize it.

Isn't this a plateaued market?

Amazon, Google, and Apple are already entrenched in the space. It's not like any of them have toxic brands like Oracle where everyone is dying to free themselves. Most people are happy with their products.

This seems like a tough move...

Privacy nightmare + worse UX than a phone or sitting at your desk? Dead on arrival. Not a fan of Alexa but at least it can change what you're currently viewing on your Fire stick.

This seems like a more expensive version of the rabbit or friend ai pins. What is going to differentiate this above any of (1) my phone that can use any AI provider and I can already carry around the home, (2) a set of smart speakers that can talk to an AI provider like google home/homepod/alexa, or (3) my computer?

This thing is dead on arrival. The space is already crowded and no one needs another device listening in your house. Already plenty to choose from.

This feels like the obvious future. Everybody doom scrolls on their phones too much, but we can’t get rid of them because of the convenience of the productive things we can do when we need to.

So if there was a way to enable the productivity (or even multiply it, let’s be real) without the doomscrolling, a lot of people would go for that.

Not to mention the endless fiddling we’ve had to resort to with phones. We’ve gotten used to it, but apps for everything is such a cognitive burden on people. A screen-less AI assistant is the perfect solution for this. I can’t wait.

Why do I need to agree to arbitration and waive class action lawsuits to read an article?

Maybe based off the proprietary Apple expertise that led to the hockey puck mouse.

I think a truly open source OS and phone is what both Facebook, OpenAI, Amazon, Netflix, Epic, Microsoft, Spotify and many others need to get out of the grips of Apple. It’s quite ironic that all these companies pour billions in failed attempts of stores, hardware, platforms, lawsuits yet fail to collaborate in any meaningful way to establish a new standard that is truly better. It implicitly also proves that their problem is not with the app stores being closed, but that they don’t own it.

There’s nothing wrong with the phone, we don’t need glasses, hockeypucks or new contrived ways to interact with the digital world, we need a truly open hardware and software stack for the benefit of humanity, no lockdown, no one company in control, just a healthy platform where apps can thrive in a fair competition.

I feel like there will be a minimal UI/no screen but it will have 9 far field microphones. 2-3 cameras , an iris scanner, GPS, and lidar. This is because it is a data collection device for use in OpenAI's future models, more than it is a an assistant.

> The idea is to make the device easy to carry around the home with one hand.

So their target audience has a large enough home that they need a completely separate device since they have areas that aren't covered either by smart speakers or their phone. But the device has little functionality outside the home, because it requires talking to it which usually cannot be done in public. How large is this group of wealthy shut-ins?

The previous "smart pins" made more sense. The first thing I would want to do with this new device would be to put a chain around it and hang it around my neck, but it seems specifically designed to not do that.

Assuming instead of being another phone or voice assistant: It might make sense as a local AI server/proxy expanding to home assistant/TV. If they could claim to need to have device id's to avoid their models being scraped, they could force users to use their device proxy and avoid middlemen (likely by making it cheaper than direct access), and likely save a lot of server time by doing some processing locally on client's dime. Then they could start to play the device-id game with 2-factor authentication, etc. and their stock would track their install base like Comcast STB's.

If Johny Ives delivers a hockey puck then he is diminished in my eyes.

Of all the things you could breath AI life into, what could be more boring, bland and already done than the Alexa hockey puck.

Sadly, zero interest on my part.

If I need information, it is already within easy reach:

"Hey (Google|Siri), <question>?" or Just get my phone out and use website/app of your choice.

The device is presumably listening and recording everything and you can bet your last dollar there is fine print in the TOS that says Altman actually owns everything you say near the device and can use it for whatever he wants.

Oh, you thought you bought the device! Silly peasant! you just have the privilege of paying me to rent the device from me. Remember you will own nothing and will be happy.

Given the almost universal negative press about Altman, I wonder how many people would actually want a device from Sam 'let me scan your eyeballs for make believe money' Altman in their home.

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41042929

A real life companion cube, even with the same corporate juggernaut flavor.

So its a competitor to Homepod and Alexa, but more capable, possibly through Computer Use among other agentic workflows people have today.

DoA and won't be allowed in any space that values privacy.

Is this the device they picked up Johnny Ive to design?

non-paywall: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/what-is-o...

I hope it has little arms that gesticulate while it talks, like Stan from the Monkey Island games. Maybe it could have a Trump mode as well.

“ No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

Related:

Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019