I'll go against the grain and say that I like this, I genuinely don't think this is anything but some internal team being excited about their product and giving you some firmware to connect stuff to their agents. Meta the trillion dollar company will not move at all from this.
why build here? why should we grow our gardens in this factory farm?
if this muse gadget seems so cool, why not make your own?
don’t outsource your curiosity to people like this, they do not care about you, your family, or your livelihood. they want to control you; this is their toy that they made for you to become fascinated by
First, the muse gadget is just an API and SDK. It’s a fun toy for silly projects.
The software world is spoiled in that making something new is just text in a file, we’ve proliferated open source freeware, and with AI we can readily clone entire products in a weekend.
Sometimes though, people like to use commercial products for various reasons (reliability, cost, network effect, etc). If you like to tinker, this seems like a neat way for some without yak shaving an AI assistant along the way. We don’t need to reinvent every wheel for everything.
I personally think “embodied” assistants are a really fun idea, and this is just an API and SDK to build on and it’s super accessible to basically everyone in the world. If you were inclined to use Muse already, why not tinker with this. I’m sure the hardware would be easy enough to point to an API running on your own server later if you wanted.
The general theme of meta's approach across the board here is interesting - basically, they are trying to win in part by taking risks others aren't willing to. I can imagine they saw that all the success is coming so far when a someone is willing to cross a boundary that wasn't previously thought acceptable - from releasing ChatGPT in the first place, to things like OpenClaw.
So now they are actively distributing SDKs and to let people "hack" custom hardware integrations to their already risky AI agents unleashed on the general public. Giving agents abilty to control things in the physical world - what could possibly go wrong?
But here we are: so far the story is pretty much 100% "fortune favors the bold", and Meta is leaning into it.
It is weird, a year and a half ago I wrote a blog post (https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/lets-do-some-actual-...) basically describing a lot of what Muse does, except all hosted locally. I included a section about using hardware around the house to enhance AI agents.
When the initial Muse launch happened, my first reaction was "wow this sounds familiar."
Now the HW side of things is announced.
To be fair, this is all obvious stuff that should be done. The key is who can pull it off. It has been pointed out many types that technically Muse is nothing new, some combination of Gemini products can already do it. The counterpoint being that packaging and branding make a product.
I am kind of sad that desktop computer use ended up being the way to go instead of hooking into mobile phones. Mobile phones allow for a lot more potential integrations with day to day life, plenty of services now days are (sadly) only available through a mobile app.
Meta has never created anything successful since getting lucky with Facebook. Instagram and WhatsApp were acquisitions. Facebook Phone, the Libra shitcoin, and Metaverse VR were all flops. Jury's still out on the much-maligned "pervert glasses", but maybe those will sell.
Now they're trying a new thing. I don't know if it's so much "being bold" as flailing around for some new thing. They really desperately want to own a "platform" like Microsoft, Apple, or Google.
I don't totally disagree but I think you understate the level of competence needed to integrate and make successful the acquisitions. And they navigated the valley of death from desktop to mobile. And Threads is an interesting example everyone ignores that is 100% in-house and has actually established a strong user base. At very least, Meta has avoided the fate of so many others that came before - Yahoo, MySpace, etc and in part that is because Zuck made big bets at the right time that many people thought were insane (buying WhatsApp, Instagram etc).
I can see the VR stuff, but why this? It seems like anyone bold enough to hack on local hardware would have no trouble working outside Muse as an ecosystem.
Yeah that is what bothers me. I can't get Muse in Australia anyway (could probably VPN I guess) but would be keen when someone else more reliable/trustworthy.
What an interesting timeline, I bought an Seeed reTerminal E1001 just few weeks ago and loaded it with ESP Home for my daily morning brief, and here Meta is advertising support for this niche hacker product.
This took no time to flash onto a Stick S3 using codex to pull everything. The interface is interesting. I can't get it to respond to a voice message though.
> Gadgets you build with the Muse Gadget SDK need a token. Add it to your SDK configuration so your gadgets can pair with the Muse app.
> Each token can be used by a limited number of devices.
> The Muse Gadget SDK is intended for personal tinkering and is not a supported product or developer platform. The SDK can change, break, or stop functioning without warning.
Clearly you just made the completely unique mistake of not understanding it’s more like the “ownership” of digital movies, games and music where there is clearly no ownership. That is completely obvious to anyone who would see the word “own”…at least according to most companies court filings.
Literally yesterday I ordered an ESP32-C5 board to build a home network proxy for cloud agents (including but not limited to Muse), and today they announce this. I guess this is confirmation I'm on the right track.
It's a matter of time until Alexa, Google Home, and Siri leverage their device ecosystems to pull users into their Muse/Instinct alternative (whatever we end up calling this market).
This looks like a really smart way for Meta to bootstrap a hardware ecosystem around Muse.
The larping as a grassroots/open source product is really off-putting. The only reason anyone would use this is that its "free" and comes with preloaded prompts for non-technical people.
LARPing would imply pretending to do something, but not actually doing it. Here they appear to be actually doing it (open source product). Is there something Im missing?
You only addressed half of it. I'm with you that the code is open source, but it's an open source client for Meta's proprietary service. The one original piece of hardware on this "Open source hardware for your Muse" page, the Home Link, only works with an active subscription. And the "grassroots" part is clearly larpy: a "by hackers, for hackers" voice in a Meta incubator repo.
https://muse.ai/deviceterms
"If your Muse subscription terminates or expires, your Muse Device will cease to function as described in these Device Terms and the device documentation. The device's capabilities will be unavailable until an active subscription is restored."
Just think of the possibilities—previously Muse invited someone to the user's house from Facebook Marketplace, but sadly the user wasn't home, and so got angry. But if you connect Muse to your Internet of Things—why, Muse could just unlock the door for your guest! You don't even need to be aware that they're coming. Surprise guests!
Oh, thank God it was such a specific and unique human error. There's no way almost everybody using AI via Meta products aren't just clicking "always approve" on their app lol
why build here? why should we grow our gardens in this factory farm?
if this muse gadget seems so cool, why not make your own?
don’t outsource your curiosity to people like this, they do not care about you, your family, or your livelihood. they want to control you; this is their toy that they made for you to become fascinated by
The software world is spoiled in that making something new is just text in a file, we’ve proliferated open source freeware, and with AI we can readily clone entire products in a weekend.
Sometimes though, people like to use commercial products for various reasons (reliability, cost, network effect, etc). If you like to tinker, this seems like a neat way for some without yak shaving an AI assistant along the way. We don’t need to reinvent every wheel for everything.
I personally think “embodied” assistants are a really fun idea, and this is just an API and SDK to build on and it’s super accessible to basically everyone in the world. If you were inclined to use Muse already, why not tinker with this. I’m sure the hardware would be easy enough to point to an API running on your own server later if you wanted.
Red meaning "I'm working on something important. Disturb only if emergency"
Green being, "I'm scattershot, come hang"
This is the perfect platform for stuff like this.
So now they are actively distributing SDKs and to let people "hack" custom hardware integrations to their already risky AI agents unleashed on the general public. Giving agents abilty to control things in the physical world - what could possibly go wrong?
But here we are: so far the story is pretty much 100% "fortune favors the bold", and Meta is leaning into it.
When the initial Muse launch happened, my first reaction was "wow this sounds familiar."
Now the HW side of things is announced.
To be fair, this is all obvious stuff that should be done. The key is who can pull it off. It has been pointed out many types that technically Muse is nothing new, some combination of Gemini products can already do it. The counterpoint being that packaging and branding make a product.
I am kind of sad that desktop computer use ended up being the way to go instead of hooking into mobile phones. Mobile phones allow for a lot more potential integrations with day to day life, plenty of services now days are (sadly) only available through a mobile app.
Modularity, connection, and true ownership.
I was shocked to see Zuckerberg announce the Muse Charm keychain last week.
A fun coincedence..
Now they're trying a new thing. I don't know if it's so much "being bold" as flailing around for some new thing. They really desperately want to own a "platform" like Microsoft, Apple, or Google.
But you're handcuffed.
He wants to own the future for the sake of money, not because he wants to improve lives or entertain folks.
Here are some fun things I've worked on for the S3: https://rillsound.com
> Gadgets you build with the Muse Gadget SDK need a token. Add it to your SDK configuration so your gadgets can pair with the Muse app.
> Each token can be used by a limited number of devices.
> The Muse Gadget SDK is intended for personal tinkering and is not a supported product or developer platform. The SDK can change, break, or stop functioning without warning.
Doesn't really feel like it's my own.
(I joke, but not really…)
This looks like a really smart way for Meta to bootstrap a hardware ecosystem around Muse.
As for AI, I would only use it for work and as a substitute for google search and don’t want it to do anything else in my personal life
No thanks.
https://gadgets.muse.ai/home-link "Muse Home Link itself only runs official firmware and can’t be reflashed"
there are so many other awesome open hardware/software we could share and talk about, from other HNers, some in /new right now
...instead of this