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Covid-era whiz kid is back, and he brought a Friend — a wearable, always listening, $99 AI companion (www.geekwire.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This isn't a joke, though it almost seems like one. It uses Llama 3.1, and supposedly the conversation data stays on the device and gets forgotten over time (through what the founder calls a rolling "context window").

The implementation is interesting, and you can see the founder talking about earlier prototypes and project goals in interviews from several months ago.

iOS only, for now.

Edit: Apparently, you can build your own for around $50 that runs on ChatGPT instead of Llama. I'm sure you could also figure out how to switch it to the LLM of your choice.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

$99? I just ordered the parts for $50 (including shipping and handling and a 100 count on/off switches of which I only need one)

Also confused why they say it is "always on" if it has an off switch. A TV can be always on until you turn it off. Once I build it, I'll see what can be switched around - I am hoping to get something like the superbooga extension for oobabooga (RAG vetorization of documents) working with the transcripts.

Was a bit worried about Whisper STT, but I think it is the open source on device one, not the runs on OpenAI servers version.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

You're a champion. Post it up here when you get it rolling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Can you post your BOM?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just followed this: https://docs.basedhardware.com/assembly/Buying_Guide/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Added to the post! Great find.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh, crap! This is getting confusing. I think this is what happened:

The "Friend.com" AI friend was originally named "Tab". The Basedhardware.com wearable was originally named "Friend", but "AI Friend" was turning up to much stuff, so they added Based hardware to the name.

Then the creator of Tab renamed it "Friend" and bough Friend.com. Both AI wearable, but the Friend.com sounds more closed source than the based hardware Friend. So they are technically two different projects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I mean, taking open source and turning it into closed source isn't an impossible case. It wouldn't surprise me if he borrowed ideas from the other project, at any rate.

But yeah, definitely different projects, though it remains to be seen how different they are at their core. I'm not spending $100 to find out; I'll let the whales do that.