The details
Out of the box the kit did little: replies were slow, silent and shown only a few words at a time, and it came with one avatar. With no coding experience, Hollister asked Claude to add a conversation history page, a spoken voice from ElevenLabs, a remote camera shutter, extra avatars and a Tamagotchi-style care game. The remaining lag comes from Meta’s servers. Hollister says the code’s quality is unknown and keeps the device on guest Wi-Fi, citing a report that Muse leaked a reviewer’s home address.
Why it matters
The piece suggests the value of a dedicated AI gadget may lie in how freely it can be changed, not in the assistant itself, which here did little more than a phone. That leaves the question Hollister raises: whether Meta’s retail Muse Charm will be as programmable. AI coding tools also let non-programmers run code they can’t check, a real risk on a device tied to accounts and home networks.