We’ve already talked about the Rabbit R1 before here on TechRadar: an ambitious little pocket-friendly device that contains an AI-powered personal assistant, capable of doing everything from curating a music playlist to booking you a last-minute flight to Rome. Now, the pint-sized companion tool has been shown demonstrating its note-taking capabilities.
The latest demo comes from Jesse Lyu on X, founder and CEO of Rabbit Inc., and shows how the R1 can be used for note-taking and transcription via some simple voice controls. The video (see the tweet below) shows that note-taking can be started with a short voice command, and ended with a single button press.
another week, another homemade r1 demo. note taking with r1 with playback/download/AI summary.still need bit of touch but it’s both intuitive and functional. more to come. pic.twitter.com/3r5hCsYMe1March 11, 2024
It’s a relatively early tech demo – Lyu notes that it “still need bit of touch” [sic] – but it’s a solid demonstration of Rabbit Inc.’s objectives when it comes to user simplicity. The R1 has very little in terms of a physical interface, and doubles down by having as basic a software interface as possible: there’s no Android-style app grid in sight here, just an AI capable of connecting to web apps to carry out tasks.
Once you’ve recorded your notes, you can either view a full transcription, see an AI-generated summary, or replay the audio recording (the latter of which requires you to access a web portal). The Rabbit R1 is primarily driven by cloud computing, meaning that you’ll need a constant internet connection to get the full experience.
Opinion: A nifty gadget that might not hold up to criticism
As someone who personally spent a lot of time interviewing people and frantically scribbling down notes in my early journo days, I can definitely see the value of a tool like the Rabbit R1. I’m also a sucker for purpose-built hardware, so despite my frequent reservations about AI, I truly like the concept of the R1 as a ‘one-stop shop’ for your AI chatbot needs.
My main issue is that this latest tech demo doesn’t actually do anything I can’t do with my phone. I’ve got a Google Pixel 8, and nowadays I use the Otter.ai app for interview transcriptions and voice notes. It’s not a perfect tool, but it does the job as well as the R1 can right now.
As much as I love the Rabbit R1’s charming analog design, it’s still going to cost $199 (£159 / around AU$300) – and I just don’t see the point in spending that money when the phone I’ve already paid for can do all the same tasks. An AI-powered pocket companion sounds like an excellent idea on paper, but when you take a look at the current widespread proliferation of AI tools like Windows Copilot and Google Gemini in our existing tech products, it feels a tad redundant.
The big players such as Google and Microsoft aren’t about to stop cramming AI features into our everyday hardware anytime soon, so dedicated AI gadgets like Rabbit Inc.’s dinky pocket helper will need to work hard to prove themselves. The voice control interface that does away with apps completely is a good starting point, but again, that’s something my Pixel 8 could feasibly do in the future. And yet, as our Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff puts it, I might still end up loving the R1…
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