Meta’s Muse, a personal AI agent that books trips, fills out forms and makes purchases on a user’s behalf, has already proven popular with the general public, but a new side project could be particularly enticing for DIYers and hackers.
On Friday, the company introduced Muse Gadgets, an open source project that lets developers create their own Muse-connected hardware.
Meta provides open source firmware (the low-level software that runs a device) and a Linux software development kit (SDK), along with some project ideas to help users get started. These include giving Muse an e-ink color display or loading it onto a stick that plugs into a TV’s HDMI port.
There don’t seem to be many limits either. Users can set up a low-cost hobbyist computer like a Raspberry Pi or a commercially available ESP32 board, then connect Muse “to your displays, buttons, sensors, actuators, and whatever else you have on your workbench,” Meta notes.
The company has also set up a Discord channel to support users.
Meta has already tried the code himself, of course. Nat Friedman, product manager at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, said in an article on X that the company had built a gadget called Muse Home Link. The USB-C powered device allows Muse to connect to a home network and communicate with smart devices there, including smart speakers and TVs.
In fact, Meta has created 5,000 of these Home Links and is offering them for free to Muse subscribers while supplies last, according to Friedman. Given that Friedman’s Home Link post was viewed nearly 30,000 times in a matter of hours, we believe these gifts were claimed. Friedman said Home Link will be ready to ship in a few weeks.
Muse Gadgets may not have a big appeal, but it fits perfectly into Meta’s overall strategy to make Muse more than a standalone chatbot. Meta isn’t just pushing Muse to everyday consumers; it is also trying to appeal to small businesses and businesses.
The company earlier this week introduced Muse for Small Business, which is free with usage limits and connects Muse to tools like Shopify, Dropbox and Slack. It also launched a new business unit, Meta Enterprise Platform, to help bring its AI offerings to enterprises and large enterprises.
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