In some ways I wish my smartphone was like the Rabbit R1. Instead of digging through dozens of different apps to get things done, you can just use your voice and let AI agents do everything for you. That's the promise of the R1, but does it live up to the hype?
The Rabbit R1 is available to order now for $199. I have spent many hours with this device so far and this cute retro orange gadget definitely has its charms. You can use it to search, play music, order rideshares and food, and even create creative AI photos while flying. In addition, you can use the Rabbit R1 for note-taking and translation.
However, it's clear that the R1 is in its early stages of development, and not all features work as advertised — at least not yet. And there are a few things I wish were here on day one. Here are my Rabbit R1 impressions so far. Stay tuned for our full review.
Update April 25: Rabbit has given a statement below that Uber functionality is not yet working on our R1 unit.
Clever retro design, some weird UI choices
The Rabbit R1 is a lot lighter than I thought it was going to be, though you do get a decent-sized 2.88-inch touch display, which is a big advantage over the Human AI Pin, which sticks to your hand. I presents it as my interface. A more expensive $699 with a $24 monthly subscription.
You also get an analog scroll wheel on the right side and a push-to-talk button for chatting with the R1. Communicating with the Rabbit R1 takes some getting used to. For example, despite having a touchscreen, you often use the side push-to-talk button to make selections.
If you flip the R1 on its side you can use the built-in keyboard for things like entering a Wi-Fi password, but the keys are too small and sometimes the Enter button doesn't work.
There doesn't seem to be any way to control the volume when playing music. You can go into settings or press to talk to increase or decrease the volume, but it's not ideal.
Search is fast and current.
The Rabbit R1 handles voice search queries faster than I expected. You simply press the push-to-talk button and ask your question, which is answered by the Rabbit Perplexity AI engine.
For example, I asked “What's the latest on the TikTok ban” and R1 gave me a spoken and written response that was fairly recent. He told me that the bill to ban TikTok had passed the Senate and was on its way to President Biden's signature, while also giving me the background on the matter.
I also asked “What were the NBA scores from last night?” And R1 returned results for Mavericks vs. Clippers, Suns vs. Timberwolves and Pacers vs. Bucks instantly, though it would have been nice if it included team logos instead of just scores.
R1 was kind enough to add some icons for the weather when I asked about the forecast for Freehold NJ, complete with hour-by-hour temperatures and rain chances.
Vision (beautiful) works.
@mspoonyg ♬ Cocktails – Joyce Stock
One of the Rabbit R1's best features is vision, which takes advantage of the built-in camera to identify and take action on objects. You press the push-to-talk button twice to activate the rotating camera.
For my first test I simply asked “Which iPhone is this?” Pointing the R1 at my iPhone 14 Pro Max Unfortunately, the Rabbit R1 said I had an iPhone 12 so I switched to the bright light. Then he told me that I have an iPhone 13 Pro which is the “latest iPhone”. Well, that's wrong on two counts.
I had better luck when I spotted a rabbit R1 in a houseplant and asked what it was. R1 replied that he was not able to provide the specific species but the overall response was good: “It looks like a succulent plant, possibly a type of aloe or agave. The plant has long, thick, fleshy green leaves. Succulents are characterized by a sharp leaf shape and they grow in a dense, clustered form, which is characteristic of many succulent varieties.”
I decided to have some fun with the R1 and pointed the camera at my home bar and asked “What cocktail can I make with it?” R1 replied that this could include liqueurs such as gin, vodka, rum, whiskey, Baileys and Cointreau, as well as some mixers such as tonic water. And he also suggested some cocktails like gin and tonics, mojitos and Negronis.
Ordering Ubers and DoorDash: A definite work in progress.
Imagine if you could order your favorite food items with your voice without ever opening an app or touching your phone. That's the idea behind connecting services like DoorDash to the Rabbit R1.
Rabbit does not plug into an API for the service. Instead, the company's large action model was trained on the DoorDash app and interface so that it can place orders on your behalf using your account credentials. You're required to provide your username and password when setting up your Rabbit, but the company claims it doesn't store your data.
Anyway, I asked “Can you get me a barbecue burger from the chapter house?” (a local restaurant) and then I waited. And waited. (To be fair, R1 warns you that this process takes some time). 47 seconds later, I was greeted with some nearby options for burgers but not the restaurant I described. Then when I selected one of the recommendations I got an error trying to access the menu. Not Good.
I then tried ordering an Uber from my house to the nearest Starbucks. The friendly lady's voice chimed in and seemed to get me a ride but failed when I went to confirm the request. This happened on multiple attempts.
Update: I received the following response from Rabbit on my Uber issues:
LAM works on your behalf by running the Uber web app on the cloud. Uber ultimately decides what and how it serves customers, so depending on factors like the location you're booking from, your ride history, etc., it may vary from time to time. We are implementing measures that help improve the success rate and transparency of booking a ride through r1, so the experience should improve over time.
Your new iPod?
With its built-in scroll wheel and access to Spotify, it's hard not to think of the Rabbit R1 as a modern-day iPod. It's great to be able to say “Play Taylor Swift's new album” and it just starts playing. I couldn't figure out how to pause playback at first but you just double tap the press button to talk.
However, to say that the Spotify integration is groundbreaking would be an understatement. The Rabbit R1 couldn't access my playlists, and when I said “Sp Track”, Assistant said I needed to provide the artist or song name.
Meet your new meeting assistant.
Sure, Google Meet — not to mention many other apps — can already do this for me, but it's nice to know that Rabbit can record your meetings and provide a creative AI summary. can
As a test, I had the Rabbit R1 record Kristen Wiig's Jimmy Fallon interview and it did a fine job. It is stored on the Rabbit website under your online journal, along with all your other interactions with Rabbit Eye vision.
It was actually a “discussion about exchanging lists of classic movies that hadn't been seen before and guessing their plots based on credibility and bits of information shared.” – exemplified with 'The Notebook' has gone where the plot involves a farmer who falls in love with a rich woman..”
Too bad you don't get a transcription of the conversation like you do with other services. At least you get a nifty retro tape recorder graphic while recording.
The generative AI is fun but a bit of a dead end.
Because the Rabbit R1 works with Midjourney, you can use the Rabbit R1 to create photos on the spot. Being the dog sucker that I am, I asked Madjuni to photograph the golden retrievers playing Frisbee on the beach, and I got some realistic results — about 1 minute and 10 seconds later.
I wish you could do something with these photos. I asked Rabbit R1 to email me one of them and it told me it couldn't send emails or files. I could go to Discord/Midjourney and download them myself, but that's extra work.
Rabbit R1 Outlook
There are still a lot of things I haven't tried with the Rabbit R1, including translation, travel plans and some cool productivity tricks Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu showed on stage during the R1 launch event, like scanning paper spreadsheets. , to digitize it. and moving stuff around.
I have yet to stack multiple tasks together to see how much time the R1 can really save. But I keep coming back to the same question. Do we need another device when a phone can do so much more than the Rabbit R1? And even with the things my phone can't do I imagine it won't be long until Apple catches up with what it's doing with iOS 18 and Siri 2.0. And of course, Google is pushing a lot with AI on the best Android phones with Gemini.
I'm also concerned about the R1's battery life. It seems to lose its charge fairly quickly, going from 100% to 38% in six hours. I noticed more power draw when the camera was in use. So you might need to charge the thing a couple of times a day.
For now I'd say the Rabbit R1 is an interesting piece of future AI in a pocket-friendly design, but I'd like to see more features work seamlessly before recommending someone spend $200 on it.