The Rabbit R1 is the best-designed of the AI assistant gadgets to appear (compare to the "visitor lanyard"-esque Humane AI Pin) but was met by similarly poor reviews. AI-powered voice UX was not fully-baked, leaving owners frustrated by hinky Android gadgets. There are "at least 5,000 people using r1 every day", reports Fast Company's Liz Stinson, quoting Jesse Lyu.
"I'm very frank with the criticisms," Lyu said. "I actually watch every single [piece of] YouTube coverage, see every Twitter shit post. I have a Notion file that I document by the timestamp of, 'Oh, this guy complained about that, and that guy complained about this.'"
"The fact is, the early bad reviews didn't kill us, right?" he added. Lyu said that, now, around 5,000 people use the R1 daily, and his team has pushed 16 over-the-air updates to the R1 since its initial ship date. He views the R1 as an interactive product; and believes that it's imperative for hardware startups embrace imperfect if they want to be part of a conversation. "If you're a startup, you better ship early, period," he said.
They've sold 100,000, reportedly. 5 percent really doesn't sound like an encouraging daily-user number for a pocket gadget that costs $200 and seems designed to be with you on-the-go. Has it improved, owners? You can already get them on eBay for about a third of the retail price and I like the hardware. It looks like a cool little hackable display/clock/cyberdeck thingy, and the isometric pixel rabbit remains adorable.
