AI hardware has the potential to be super interesting, but it’s off to a pretty rough start. The new Rabbit R1 looked fun ahead of its launch, but most early users have asked why it’s not just a smartphone app. As it turns out, that’s exactly what the Rabbit R1 is – a little orange box running an Android app.
The Rabbit R1 was announced earlier this year as a little gadget that could help you answer questions on the go using AI. One of its big selling points was the use of Large Action Models which could be trained to handle actions in various apps and services, effectively letting the AI do the work going forward once you’ve shown it how. It’s a neat concept, and the $200 price tag of the device was pretty intriguing.
But, as initial reviews have all agreed, it’s a pretty rough product as it stands. The battery is abysmal, the touchscreen is pointlessly limited, and the software is inconsistent.
The question that’s been asked more than anything else is why this experience isn’t just a phone app. The Rabbit R1 itself is effectively just a touchscreen and a camera that sits in your pocket, just like your phone does. So why not just run it on the phone?
As it turns out, the Rabbit R1 is (probably) basically just a simplified Android phone running a fancy launcher.
Android Authority received an APK for the “R1 Launcher,” an Android app that contains the entire Rabbit R1 experience and can be run on an Android phone. When installed (apparently after some tinkering), the app recognized the phone’s T-Mobile SIM card and was able to use the phone’s volume button in place of the R1’s side button. The app allowed setup of the “rabbithole” account as well as being able to use the settings menu and the AI voice assistant.
It’s unlikely that Rabbit would ever release this experience for users to actually use on their smartphones, but it’s fascinating to see that this $200 device, at its core, is basically just running an Android app.
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