The rabbit R1 doesn’t have many options which your phone already has. No emails will be sent for you. Calendar reminders or alarms cannot be set. Unable to connect to apps other than the selected four apps, including Spotify, Uber, DoorDash, and Midjourney. All of these features may be coming in the future, but if you’re wondering why it’s not just another AI app, some tech bloggers have done just that by taking a leaked version of the Rabbit APK and running it along have carried out relatively little effort on Android. Now Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu has come to defend his $200 AI doohickey’s “custom-made” code, which requires Rabbit’s own hardware.
How $700 Human AI Pin Before that, the first reviews of the little orange Rabbit R1 and its AI assistant weren’t exactly enthusiastic. However, tech blogger Mishaal Rahman goes one step further Android Authority claimed that he and his team managed to get Rabbit’s operating system running on a Pixel 6 phone. This used a supposedly leaked launcher APK that Rahman was able to translate directly into an Android app.
The Rabbit R1’s screen is just 2.88 inches and has such a low resolution that it only appears in the top corner of the Pixel 6 phone’s display. Although it answers a basic question, Rahman hasn’t tested whether the Rabbit’s vision or app features work on the phone. Still, Android Authority claimed they could log into a Rabbithole account (the main account for your R1), which could then connect to what appears to be the same interface that Rabbit uses.
Gizmodo reached out to Rabbit for comment early Wednesday morning ET, and we were referred to a statement from Lyu that read:
“Rabbit r1 is not an Android app. We are aware that there are some unofficial app/website emulators for Rabbit OS. We understand people’s passion to get a taste of our AI and LAM instead of waiting for their R1 to arrive. However, to clear up any misunderstandings and set the record straight, Rabbit OS and LAM run in the cloud with very tailored AOSP and lower level firmware modifications, so a local bootleg APK is not possible without the correct OS and cloud endpoints is Access our service. Rabbit OS is customized for r1 and we do not support third-party clients. Following today’s OTA, we have implemented several cloud verification improvements to validate device/client requests. We reserve all rights for malicious and illegal cybersecurity activities related to our Services.”
To understand what this means, Rabbit says that its device runs on the Android Open Source Project’s modified source code and that its operating system runs in the cloud and the firmware does additional work on the device. From the looks of it, Rahman was able to access some Rabbit features that simply connected the device to the cloud servers running the AI models, although he probably couldn’t access every single Rabbit feature. A few hours after publishing his article, Rahman tweeted that his Pixel 6 version of Rabbit would no longer connect, which seems to confirm Lyu’s statement about new user verification requirements.
While it is still unclear where Rahman obtained the APK, there was one a connection searched for the supposedly leaked Rabbit source code for a few weeks. These leakers called the Rabbit’s mere promise “a blatant lie,” claiming that the device merely ran multiple automation scripts and that app connectivity merely ran on a virtual machine.
But let’s ignore the Rabbit on Android debate. That’s not really the point. As Rahman himself saidCountless startups get their projects off the ground by relying on good old AOSP with hardware that already supports the Android ecosystem. The Rabbit runs on the Mediatek Helio P35 MT6765, a five-year-old ARM-based mobile CPU that can support LGE Radio with download speeds of up to 300 Mbps. Is it bad? No, not necessarily. Rabbit didn’t lie about what the Rabbit is capable of, but the question we should be asking is whether it does everything it promises well enough to justify the asking price.
The device costs just $200 compared to the $700 Humane Pin, thanks in part to open source software combined with cheaper hardware. The problem isn’t that Rabbit is somehow scamming people with a fake phone, but rather that Rabbit should have waited before releasing its first product. Gizmodo has noted that the device’s battery life is pretty poor, but just yesterday – less than a week after release – Rabbit released an update that would supposedly increase battery life many times over.
We at Gizmodo have only had 24 hours with it, and we’ve already noticed that the device is very, very limited in what it can do. It can answer basic questions and offers a little more nuance than Siri on some questions. It also has basic vision features that can answer some questions about your surroundings, but even those features seem rough. I turned it around selfie style and asked the bunny to describe me. According to Rabbit R1, I have a beard (that’s right, A+, no grades), but it also showed me that I was wearing a red shirt, even though I was wearing my usual drab black. It doesn’t have a GPS feature, but if you ask for your current zip code, it will surely tell you that you are miles away from your location. I would be very concerned if I asked for important information such as where the nearest hospital was.
Connecting to Spotify or other apps is a big hassle, made worse by the fact that the device’s main controls are your voice and a single button on the side. Ask it to skip a song that is currently playing and Rabbit will ask you which song you want to skip. The answer, of course, should be: “The one I’m listening to right now.”
My colleague Dua Rashid will be giving her detailed thoughts on the Rabbit R1 this week, but after using it for a short while, I can say that I wouldn’t even download it if it were an app.