How the Rabbit R1 helps with my ADD and boosts productivity

I have Attention Deficit (ADD) and the attention span of a gnat, which is why I purchased the Rabbit R1. Its minimalistic user interface appealed to me, so I wanted to experiment with it to determine if it could help me with productivity.

I won a bid for it on eBay for a hundred dollars less, so I was already on a winning streak. The pocket companion AI device had me at no subscription required. Plus, I love Push-To-Talk (PTT) walkie-talkie devices and exploring AI.

It’s based on GPT 3.5, powered by Android, and fits in the palm of my hand so I can fidget with it while using it as a personal assistant during on-the-go research. Let me emphasize that my private life is incredibly volatile, and I am always on the move, traveling.

This means I spend a lot of time in the car or grocery shopping, and doing school runs for my kids. So, the research and note-taking must continue from the passenger seat.

Unfortunately, I have approximately three minutes before I start getting car sick, so I use the R1 instead of my phone for note-taking, voice recording, and running searches since I don’t have to look at the screen to listen to the information I need for when I’m back at my workstation.

As soon as my eyes open I’m going zero to ninety. Since I am a visual learner, and I retain information better by listening, I use this little orange square to learn things I need to know without getting distracted.

First, let me be the first to say, that I collect gadgets – from rooted Nexus phones with Kali Nethunter to night vision goggles, AR glasses, and a variety of other things because my interests come and go like the wind. Once I find something less stimulating than when I bought it, that’s when I move on to my next electronic fixation.

This is what happens when you struggle with ADD, which makes researching and learning extremely difficult for me. In the age where pop-ups and notifications and endless apps and every manner of visual distractions all vie for my attention, trying to sell me something, I thought I’d try something different.

I know many of you are laughing, and shaking your heads right now. As with everything I buy, I do extensive research. But for those who aren’t aware of the many bad reviews the R1 received post-launch, let’s dive right into that, and get it out of the way before I get into what I use mine for.

Bugs and privacy

A critical, yet old ‘bootrom’ exploit from 2019 was uncovered by Cybernews in the R1, which is unfixable since the vulnerability exists within the read-only memory component embedded in the device’s hardware.

This exposes the physical device to jailbreaking, which in turn, can allow an attacker to gain root access to the device and customize or modify the operating system or install third-party apps.

The following are some serious considerations you should take into account before purchasing this AI personal assistant:

• The R1 is vulnerable to an unpatched exploit but requires physical access in order to tamper with the device itself.
• Formerly, the device logged text-to-speech (TTS) replies that users were not able to delete, making it recoverable if sold second-hand, along with photos and TTS conversations. However, this was fixed with an update allowing users to factory reset the device.
• The bugs hamper its functionality. Oftentimes when playing music, the device times out, and won’t respond to voice commands after requesting to play music. There is no immediate volume control during playtime.
• The R1 stores its TTS entries in an online journal called the rabbithole. The login site to the rabbithole, is itself a rabbit hole. However, you can find it here.
• There is no traditional hard reset button in the event the device freezes or malfunctions. However, users can perform a soft reset by pressing the PTT button 5 times. A hard reset can only be performed from the rabbithole web portal by unlinking the R1.
• It frequently repeats, and paraphrases responses ad nauseam when trying to resolve a user inquiry. For example, I took a photo of some writing in Arabic to translate into English, and it paraphrased its response 11 times in a row before giving up, saying “Sorry, I’m unable to complete the task. Please try again.”
• Its behavior is fickle at best. For me, music frequently stops involuntarily with no way to resume the track, then stops responding to voice prompts altogether. Other users have reported the R1 spontaneously playing Spotify music at absurd hours at night.

Did I mention bugs? Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. However, Rabbit Inc. seems very proactive in resolving issues by deploying regular updates to resolve them and enhance the user experience. Despite all the annoying bugs, Rabbit R1 is still evolving and improving, which means we have not seen its final form.

That is why I threw my chips in. I did the same thing a few years ago with an AR glasses company that never delivered on any of its selling points but remained in the same place since launching, bugs and all.

But is it worth buying?

What do I use the Rabbit R1 for?

I use the Rabbit R1 for cybersecurity research while I’m on the go since I can’t type on my iPhone without typos happening every other letter, or getting distracted and forgetting that I was supposed to be studying.

I’ve wrestled with ADD my whole life. Writing articles alone is challenging, especially when there’s research involved, while kids are running around and screaming around me, phone calls, text messages, and just the overall everyday life dynamic of a person whose attention span is not like an ordinary person.

I have a multi-monitor setup, with devices all around me, each info-dumping in my line of sight, keeping me wired-in when I’m able to hyperfocus, and also as distracted as humanity possible. For example, I forgot I was writing this article six times in the last hour because things in my environment disrupted the flow of my concentration.

When researching articles, or learning Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) I can ask for the top 10 search results and be able to listen in while I’m working. As the information flows in, it helps give me ideas that provide valuable context regardless of what I’m doing.

I also have a small family member who struggles with ADD and has a high spectrum of autism. He loves learning about anything and everything. He uses my R1’s camera to identify things around the house and to explain what each item is and where to purchase it. When he takes a break from learning, he snaps pictures of things and tells the R1 to recreate them using AI.

He asks it how things work, and the R1 explains it. It teaches him things we can’t possibly sit down and teach him because he seeks avalanche-sized information dumps on a daily basis.

I know I will be buying an R1 for him since it's an excellent information tool. More importantly, the R1 is a safe bet because he won’t be talking to Alexa and telling it to buy him drones, computers, and dragons anymore. We had to unlink our bank accounts from our Alexa devices because of that.

Camera with AI

I use the R1’s camera often for foreign language translation. As long as the writing or text is legible, it can be translated into English quickly. But a nightmare ensures if it can’t translate for some reason. For example, after translating an Arabic word with perfect accuracy, I switched to Hebrew, and it kept identifying it as Arabic, saying a total of fifteen times, “Getting images of translate Arabic text to English.” It couldn’t translate it.

As if that wasn’t annoying enough, I asked it to play songs by Danheim. Although its ability to hear and figure out what you mean is pretty impressive, it sometimes fails miserably.

“Dan Hime. John Denver.”

“Country road…

Take me home…

To the place….”

I digress.

Whenever my girlfriend and I go shopping for fish at the aquarium, I use the R1 to identify fish and teach us about their diets. We also have a tomato and carrot garden, so I ended up using the R1 to tell me more about how to keep our plants alive. When shopping, I ask nutritional questions, and it helps me make smarter decisions, because I’m less distracted by my phone.

In the culmination of everything I learned and experienced first-hand as an R1 user, I realized I could have just used my Apple watch or smartphone. After all, the R1 is essentially a stripped-down version of Android, running a .apk file. It’s an app.

But for someone like myself, if I wanted to use all the apps I use on my phone for research, I’d be back at square one, fighting distractions, hopping from one screen to the next, opening this app, closing this one. Checking my emails, and then forgetting what I was trying to accomplish in the first place.

There’s beauty in simplicity, and in the end, this little orange boxy thing boosted my productivity and inspired my family member in his endless quest to learn about everything in existence.

If you buy a Rabbit R1, be patient. It’s a work in progress.