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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey! It's a Flutter application, so I'm using their concept of Hero animations [1]. It renders a new component (the flight shuttle?) that does the visual animation.
