[rjrogerto]

As others have commented - this is unsurprising - and makes a lot of sense from a technical perspective. Don't see this as scammy at all. And as for the product - the main qualm seems to be the lack of utility vs cost - which again does not seem scammy to me.

[bgun]

The article says nothing about the R1 being “scammy” - only that its functionality is overlapped by devices you likely already own. Also unsurprising for a $200 device, which is only even marketed to be a novel interface. Honestly if it’s less addictive than a smartphone due to being more limited, that could be reason enough to carry one.

[Gigachad]

It’s not that it being based on android is the surprising part, it’s that they designed and sold a physical device which could be replaced with an app on the hardware you already have.

The whole device seems to be “it’s Siri but as a standalone device” and since you still have to take your phone with you, it seems to provide no value.

[ec109685]

Nobody was going to pay $200 for that app w/ 85 gazillion LLM wrappers already out there, so they need some other form factor to get traction.

[brokenmachine]

>it’s that they designed and sold a physical device which could be replaced with an app on the hardware you already have.

Smartwatches are exactly that, and some people buy those.

[sniggers]

It can do a lot more than ChatGPT's app, let alone Siri which can do even less.

[NotYourLawyer]

The scam is that the hardware is unnecessary, expensive, and strictly worse than just using your phone.

[danparsonson]

That doesn't make it a scam though, just a waste of money. A scam would be something like, you order it and what turns up is a photo of the device with a QR code on the back linking to a download for the app.

[asadm]

Market isn't an optimization problem. Market can decide what is necessary or isn't. I would pick this up for $200 if the models were running locally.