Build Your Own Rabbit R1-Style AI Device at a Fraction of the Cost

We’re generally fans of the work done by the team over at Teenage Engineering, but to call the launch of the Rabbit R1 “controversial” would be an understatement. The Humane Ai Pin (yes, they refuse to capitalize the “I.” No, we don’t know why) is even worse and has garnered everything from ridicule to allegations of impropriety. But though there are genuine reasons to believe that our current AI fever pitch is a collapsing bubble, AI can have genuine utility. To help you harness that at a fraction of the cost of a Rabbit R1 or Humani Ai Pin, ComfySpace designed the Rappit.

Rappit is “an AI friend you can talk to,” with the most comparable consumer product being the Teenage Engineering Rabbit R1. But that costs about $200 and requires a monthly subscription, while you should be able to build a Rappit for around $20 (plus the cost of some 3D printing filament). It won’t have the display or neat analog scroll wheel that the Rabbit R1 does, but its AI will be on a similar level. That’s because it uses Google’s Gemini AI, which is an LLM (Large Language Model) similar to ChatGPT and all of the other AIs that have recently popped up. Gemini has many, many issues, but it is arguably better than the Rabbit R1’s Perplexity AI engine.

To make your own ComfySpace Rappit, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and a power supply. If you want it to be portable, you can add four AA batteries and a battery holder. Those are safer and easier to implement than bare rechargeable lithium batteries. You can then use the provided files to 3D-print the enclosure and then assemble everything.

The ComfySpace smartphone app will help you set up the software, which is essentially a client interface that runs on the Raspberry Pi and connects to the Google Gemini API. Queries entered on the Raspberry Pi are sent by the software to Gemini on the internet, which then generates and returns a response. The Rappit device doesn’t contain any hardware to accept text or voice input, or to output results. So, the user interacts with the Rappit software through their smartphone.

Is that any more practical then simply talking to Gemini through a smartphone app or web interface? Probably not. But the same can be said for the Rabbit R1 and Humane Ai Pin. The Rappit is at least an inexpensive project that will teach you something.