I'm generally skeptical and critical of most things that Meta is doing ("fool me once...") and I definitely won't trust them enough to use their agents and give them any more data than I already do, but this is a super cute and fun idea!
I love microcontrollers and DIY IoT as a hobby, a huge fan of ESP32s (so affordable and perfectly packaged in ready-to-use boards), and I can see how such easy, vibe-coded projects can inspire more people and show them how easy it is to get started with them today.
(I remember my first experiments with microcontrollers and DSPs at college in 00s - the nightmare of even just flashing those devices, not to mention the almost-prohibitive cost to get them and the sometimes required JTAG programmers I faced in Poland... My BSc thesis project was reduced in scope a few times because my professor couldn't get some purchases and shipments approved on time)
A toy with not much value? Sure. But who cares, it's fun and inspiring! They even recommend vibe-building so that the user doesn't need to download or configure SDKs. Awesome stuff for complete beginners to this area.
Over a decade ago, I could see Google releasing such a whimsy, hackersy fun toy project. Sadly, not anymore... (Saying this as a former Google employee in 2017-2022, witnessing in person the sad, gradual change from hacker culture to corporate culture)
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
I'm generally skeptical and critical of most things that Meta is doing ("fool me once...") and I definitely won't trust them enough to use their agents and give them any more data than I already do, but this is a super cute and fun idea!
I love microcontrollers and DIY IoT as a hobby, a huge fan of ESP32s (so affordable and perfectly packaged in ready-to-use boards), and I can see how such easy, vibe-coded projects can inspire more people and show them how easy it is to get started with them today. (I remember my first experiments with microcontrollers and DSPs at college in 00s - the nightmare of even just flashing those devices, not to mention the almost-prohibitive cost to get them and the sometimes required JTAG programmers I faced in Poland... My BSc thesis project was reduced in scope a few times because my professor couldn't get some purchases and shipments approved on time)
A toy with not much value? Sure. But who cares, it's fun and inspiring! They even recommend vibe-building so that the user doesn't need to download or configure SDKs. Awesome stuff for complete beginners to this area.
Over a decade ago, I could see Google releasing such a whimsy, hackersy fun toy project. Sadly, not anymore... (Saying this as a former Google employee in 2017-2022, witnessing in person the sad, gradual change from hacker culture to corporate culture)
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.
This looks exiting for tinkerers. This feels like the early days of voice assistants again except it’s more AI driven this time.
yes, but:
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.
I want a red light/green light for my Office Desk.
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.
If you mean a physical light, you can buy light switches and coloured bulbs from a hardware store.
It won't move because anyone with a brain won't use this, but I was also surprised at how many people put Bezos-listening devices in their own home.
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.
I think if someone can bring the Jonathan Computer and a mobile device that connects with that ecosystem, will be going towards a future we all want.
Modularity, connection, and true ownership.
In August (2026) i blogged & posted it here on HN saying small Ai devices belong on keychains https://ryanspahn.substack.com/p/openais-rumored-speaker-bel...
I was shocked to see Zuckerberg announce the Muse Charm keychain last week.
A fun coincedence...
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).
Threads is shit.
In Brazil we say “shoothing all way around”
This and the Meta VR stuff - I would be all over it if it weren't Meta. It's objectively cool tech.
But you're handcuffed.
I second this. Zuck gives me the ick, like that corpo villain in Ready Player One.
He wants to own the future for the sake of money, not because he wants to improve lives or entertain folks.
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.
A Meta ecosystem is definitely not coming to my household.
agreed. I only have Facebook and that is out of necessity. I never post on it.
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.
Here are some fun things I've worked on for the S3: https://rillsound.com
It says make it your own. Then
> 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.
That has been the nature of every Facebook API ever released
Needing a token to call someone's API seems reasonable to me.
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.
(I joke, but not really…)
our digital landlords, we are but serfs
Please do not waste hardware (nowadays valuable) on Meta's privacy-leaking garbage.
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.
Zuck realized the metaverse wouldn’t work, so now he’s creating the Musiverse.
This being Facebook is hard to trust with everything even considering they already have a lot of info on you
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.
100% vibe coded page
I honestly don’t think I would have any gadget from meta even if they payed me.
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
An AI from Meta on my house… FEAR!!!
My hope is that, like Jev, we're going to see Open alternatives to Muse using this framework within days
Muse(um) of gadgets. Anachronistic on arrival.
I am gonna be so pissed if ESP32 prices spike
ESP32 survived even the 2020 chip shortage unscathed. I struggle to imagine this making a dent.
Will not limited to ESP32.
And a lot of us would feel the same way, so to prevent this, we start buying a bit more, prices raise a bit, so a bit more people get scared and...
Thats very @dps
I don't get it
Hahaha
No way in hell will I give Meta access to my IoT network.
So many possibilities, especially connecting to the real agent :D
ill wait for the inevitable "foss community open source alternative" version
Neat idea, but I don't know how it would work to let non-deterministically led software/hardware hang out on private home networks.
Why would I ever want Facebook to have access to anything I own, think, or post if I could avoid it?
I wish Anthropic would robustify their bluetooth implementation (Developer > Hardware Buddy...)
Was this the AI that gives strangers your home address or am I confusing it for something else?
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.
No thanks.
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?
A surplus of outrage and a willingness to share your unfiltered reactions to things, I guess.
celebrities and billionaires always catch more heat, can we not call out their bs?
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.
It does not say you have to keep an active subscription for continued operation. The page only says:
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."
https://gadgets.muse.ai/home-link "Muse Home Link itself only runs official firmware and can’t be reflashed"
Clause 6 esp 6c makes this completely unfree and probably worse in the regard than an HP inkjet.
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!
It was discovered that the person hit "always approve" when their muse asked them if it could give out their address.
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
Ah, yes, that’s a perfectly reasonable thing for Meta to request.
this guy reads every single eula an cookie popup