Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta made AI look so stinking cute by giving it a squishy little face — and this holiday season, he wants to sell you a Muse Charm so you can carry your jolly AI helper around like a Tamagotchi.

But I won’t be buying one, because we have Muse Charm at home. It cost just $50, and I’ve decided the learning experience was worth it.

My version doesn’t sport cameras or a 5G cellular radio, but it really talks to Muse and has cute avatars, too! It doubles as a pocket watch and a remote camera viewfinder, and it can (theoretically) control my smart home.

Or at least it can if you inject a lot of extra vibe code.

Weeks ago, I paid $50 to get a 1.75-inch touchscreen computer pendant drop-shipped from China — specifically the Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.75C. Not only does the push-to-talk AI devkit look a lot like the Muse Charm, but it’s officially sanctioned by Meta. It’s one of the company’s first suggestions if you want to build a “Muse Gadget,” a device that uses Meta’s open-source code and tokens to directly connect to its Muse AI cloud.

When the silver metal pocket watch arrived, it felt pretty useless to start. Setup was easy enough — I just plugged it into my PC and pointed Claude at Meta’s GitHub, then paired it to the Muse phone app. But even after I put Meta’s keys on the device, Muse originally thought I was sending it audio clips to transcribe rather than commands. After I cleared that up, Muse’s responses were still slow, and it didn’t answer me out loud. It was hard to tell what it was saying since it only showed a few words onscreen at a time, with no place to read full messages unless I whipped out my phone with its own Muse app.

Meta’s build also only came with a single Jolly avatar that mostly just sat there and looked cute, and it wouldn’t automatically discover smart home gadgets like Amazon Echo or Google Home devices do. (This gadget really didn’t do anything useful after my initial install.) And though Meta AI software engineers Anant Narayanan and Jeremy Payne include a neat sample app showing how Muse Gadgets can stream video from your phone camera, the lack of a remote shutter button made it not so useful for taking photos.

But a few sessions of Claude Code filled in almost all those holes. All I had to do was plug the Waveshare back into my PC, then ask Claude to reprogram each thing I wanted.

When I complained to Claude that I couldn’t properly read or hear Muse’s replies to my asks, issues that others have mentioned as well, Claude built a conversation history page so I can swipe right to read what it said, and I plugged in a British AI voice from ElevenLabs that speaks its answers out loud. (The voice was the least soul-sucking of the ones in ElevenLabs’ free tier, my wife and I agree, even if it doesn’t match the Muse avatars’ cuddly vibe at all.)

Thanks to Claude, I can now press a button to make my phone take a picture from across the room with a high-quality live preview, and my phone’s front-facing camera no longer displays upside down. Claude made fairly short work of adding a low-quality camera preview over Bluetooth, too, so I don’t need to be on home Wi-Fi to get photos from creative angles.

I asked Claude to make a whole batch of different avatars like the ones Meta showed off during Meta Connect, and to add a Tamagotchi-like minigame where they need food, play, sleep, and a bath. When the game seemed too simple to capture any attention, I had it add four different levels of hunger, boredom, and dirt. I decided treats should make a crunchy mess and get avatars dirtier when they eat them, and that too much play should tire out a pet. My wish was Claude’s command.

When I noticed I was accidentally letting go of the push-to-talk button too soon and making Muse choke on almost-empty audio, vibe coding fixed it minutes later by sending only audio over one second in length. The only obvious lag I’m seeing now is from Meta’s own servers — sometimes they’re responsive, sometimes they lag quite a bit.

It was so easy to let Claude reprogram the pendant that I asked it to build a few features specifically for this video in this story, including a working pocket watch face with three hands that actually tells the time. (That took it 15 minutes; now, when I say the hardware looks like a pocket watch, you can see what I mean!) It even found, downloaded, trimmed, and loaded video clips of Zuck introducing the Muse Charm and installed a video player so I could play those clips on the Waveshare.

I want you to understand I have no coding experience, and so I have no idea if any of this code is good. It might be fatally flawed. Nor do I trust Meta or its Muse agent with my email or my home network, particularly after hearing how it leaked one reviewer’s home address. (I put it on guest Wi-Fi from the get-go as a precaution.)

That means I don’t really know how useful a Muse Charm may or may not be for those who do know how to code and are willing to take a bigger leap of faith. But after nearly dropping a bulky little silver pendant a couple of times, one with no more Muse functionality than my phone (and quite a bit less without additional code), I’m thinking Muse itself isn’t the reason to buy a dedicated compute pocket watch.

The reason to have a dedicated piece of hardware is to do things you can’t do on the phone that’s already in your pocket, like coding the entire gadget to do whatever you want. Which makes me wonder: Will the actual Muse Charm be this freely programmable, or would the kind of people who’d buy one be better off with a development kit? I guess we’ll see when it ships.

On Tuesday, defense contractor Anduril and chipmaker Qualcomm announced a partnership to build laptops entirely in the United States, starting with a single model in 2027. They also announced a “long-term goal” of pushing the computer industry to create “a fully domestic supply chain.”

Even a single Made-in-USA laptop would be a surprise, because no major US computer company builds its laptops here — not Apple, not Dell, not HP, not Microsoft. We’re not aware of any company that does.

But we are aware of companies that have briefly and strategically assembled computers here seemingly to appease President Donald Trump. We’re also aware of companies that have promised US jobs only to deliver empty buildings. And we’re aware of at least one fake “US” company that lied to the government about making product domestically.

That’s why we now ask pointed questions when a company says it’s committed to US manufacturing. We asked TP-Link those sorts of questions just over a week ago. On Monday, we asked Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon those kinds of questions.

Over the course of two days, Anduril has changed one important answer.

Anduril communications VP Shannon Prior now says the company’s laptop will have at least 65 percent of its components made in the US by the time it launches in 2027. It’s an important number, and one that Anduril did not commit to earlier this week.

Luckey held a call with reporters on Monday, during which he was clear that he wants to make literally every part of a computer in the United States — and that Anduril and Qualcomm have already mapped out a plan. “We have a technical roadmap to get to 100 percent domestic over time,” he told journalists.

Luckey also suggested his laptop would be built to comply with the requirements of the military and other government agencies — and that it would meet or exceed one specific US government standard that has an exact definition.

“We are not just barely meeting the bar for Made in America. We are going hard to make this an all-American play, and not even the Buy American Act requires what we’re trying,” Luckey said.

The Buy American Act dates back to 1933, but it was updated during the Biden Administration to require that at least 65 percent of the cost of a product’s components must be made domestically for it be considered a domestic product itself. That number is going up to 75 percent in 2029.

Many products need to be made in America to those standards, or federal agencies can’t buy them without receiving a waiver — which agencies currently use en masse, Luckey himself argued on the call. “There’s a number of government agencies that are required by law to buy American-made computers […] All of those procurements are happening under waivers of those laws,” he said.

We also noticed that Anduril’s press release specifies that its first laptop will be “designed and assembled” in the United States, not necessarily “manufactured” here (though the release does talk about future manufacturing). This was also a sticking point with router maker TP-Link, which would not confirm full manufacturing even after suggesting it in an interview with The Verge.

That’s why we asked Luckey what percent of his first laptop’s components would be made in the US. His reply was not 65 percent or 70 percent. It was “TBD.” You can read the exchange for yourself:

The Verge: When it arrives in 2027, what percent of the components in the BlueChip laptop will be made in the US?

Luckey: TBD. I’m doing my very, very best. It’s gonna be a whole mix of things based on when do certain memory fabs come online? When do certain CPU, GPU fabs come online? There’s a whole— Like, am I able to get a display line here or not? Do I have to do that after launch? I’m being totally open kimono with you here. Those questions are not settled. It is not clear if I will be able. I know the glass is gonna be made in the US, I know the frame is gonna be made in the US around that display. I know that parts of the ribbon component are gonna be made in the U.S. I don’t know if I will have successfully pulled that component in or a dozen other components. So it’s a little up in the air. I’m doing my very, very best. I think most likely the thing that we ship is not going to be 100-percent American. I think it’ll be a blend of US and allies around the world, mostly US, probably a few things from some allies, and then that’ll be in the context of conversations with those allies about bringing those components into production in the United States, and I’m being honest with the government on this too. I mean, I’ve had conversations where I’ve said, listen. I would love to give you guys an American, 100-percent American laptop right off the bat, but that is not the environment the US government has created or US industry has created. I can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

When we followed up by email to ask specifically about 65 percent, the answer was that the laptop prototype is currently at 32 percent and Anduril could not yet commit to 65 percent. Here’s Anduril spokesperson Stephanie Davis’ full reply on Tuesday:

For the prototype today, approximately 32% is U.S.-origin by component procurement cost, and more than 90% is sourced from the United States and allied countries combined.

We’re working to expand domestic sourcing and production ahead of planned availability in 2027, with the goal of eliminating foreign content and ultimately establishing an end-to-end American supply chain.

The final domestic-content percentage at launch remains unsettled, so we can’t confirm above or below 65% today. That’s why we’re asking you to revise the assertion that it will be “well below” that threshold.

Today, Prior writes that Anduril can indeed commit to 65 percent. Here is the most recent statement:

Our previous response to The Verge was incorrect. The BlueChip laptop is indeed being developed to exceed the 65% U.S. domestic-content threshold at launch in 2027. Meeting that threshold is a fundamental objective of the program. The precise domestic-content percentage of the final product is still being determined as we finalize suppliers and work through prototypes, and we look forward to sharing more next year.

Today’s statement is the first time Anduril has confirmed that we, and government agencies, theoretically shouldn’t need to wait until Anduril achieves its full goals to see a laptop that meets the Buy American standard. If everything works out, Anduril’s first laptop in 2027, with Qualcomm, should be that laptop.

We invited Luckey to explain how Anduril would get to 65 percent domestic component production in a follow-up interview, but we were told he’s not currently available. On the Monday call, he told journalists that Anduril already has a US glassmaker lined up for the laptop’s cover glass, is programming FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) to serve the purpose of power management chips and other circuits it can’t normally can’t get outside China, and is developing made-in-America batteries as well.

The press release adds that the enclosure is designed “for US machining” and the laptop will use metals “that US industry can produce and machine at scale.”

As for the laptop’s Snapdragon processor, we asked Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon about that. “TSMC has a manufacturing facility in Arizona, and that’s where our chips are going to be made,” he told The Verge.

In this economy, how often does a product get less expensive before its debut? That just happened with the Google / Xreal Aura — the lightweight 95-gram glasses with a tethered Android XR compute puck and multiple virtual screens — which just went on sale today. Xreal and Google have just announced the headset costs $1,099 through the end of the year, down from the $1,279 that Xreal was charging for preorders last month.

I expect that’s because at $1,279, they were going head to head with Meta’s VR Glasses, and that’s tough competition for Google and Xreal’s new product. The Xreal Aura has one of the widest fields of view for transparent glasses yet at 70 degrees diagonal, but that’s still not huge, and transparent glasses have other tradeoffs.

Perhaps just as important, you no longer have to navigate a maze of reservations, preorders, and Founder’s Editions if you want to buy the new Google glasses (so long as you live in a launch country). You can order the 12GB RAM + 256GB storage model for $1,099 in the US, Canada, and South Korea, or the 16GB + 512GB for a discounted $1,299, with “units expected to begin shipping in mid-November.” It’ll go on sale November 2nd in Japan, with broader availability next year.

And if you did preorder at the original price, Xreal GM and spokesperson Ralph Jodice tells The Verge that the company will automatically and instantly refund you the difference.

Xreal and Google say the headset will launch with over 150 “made-for-XR experiences,” some of which you can see in Google’s blog post and read about in Xreal’s press release, as well as new immersive films like Andy Serkis’ Nevatars and Galapagos: the Last Eden. You’ll be able to plug a computer or handheld game console right into the USB-C compute puck to mirror it to the glasses, alongside your virtual windows, and you can ask Google’s Gemini AI about what you’re seeing.

Google also writes that Google Photos is getting an XR update: “This year, Google Photos will include a new spatial gallery that wraps your library around you. You can pan from an entire year down to a single day with your hands, then open a favorite memory in 3D.”

Xreal is also partnering with GameSir to offer a wireless gamepad with a dedicated Gemini key (and a charging dock and swappable D-pads) and is announcing a folding portable wireless keyboard; we don’t have price, release date, or other details for those.

Fortune dropped a bombshell report on the future of gaming this week. According to the publication’s Microsoft insiders, the next Xbox is projected to cost between $1,200 and $1,800 when it arrives in 2028.

My first reaction: The next Xbox is dead on arrival. It’s DOA.

My second thought: Microsoft knows people won’t pay that much. It couldn’t possibly charge that much money if it wants next gen to be a success. “I wouldn’t release it at all,” former Microsoft exec Mike Ybarra recently said.

My third thought: Didn’t Microsoft already say out loud that it knows people won’t pay that much?

• Didn’t old Xbox boss Phil Spencer say “We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles”?
• Didn’t new Xbox boss Asha Sharma say “We’ve reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend” on a box?
• Didn’t Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball say the entire company would change its practices to make sure it’s affordable?
• Didn’t Sharma say Xbox would need to adopt “radically different business models” to keep Xbox from being too pricey?

Did Fortune get it wrong?

I don’t think Fortune’s insiders are the problem here. With today’s incredibly overpriced RAM and storage, it wouldn’t be surprising if it cost over a thousand dollars to build, package, distribute, and sell “the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation,” as former Xbox president Sarah Bond called the next Xbox back in 2024.

But there are at least five ways the report could be correct without making you pay all that money at once. I just don’t think you’re going to like most of them.

Subsidies: Microsoft could pay to give you a discount

The least-likely possibility is the one Fortune suggests itself. Let’s look at the original quote, bolding mine:

[…] the price of the Helix console has internally been projected to cost consumers between $1,200 and $1,800, unless Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost.

Historically, Microsoft has subsidized the Xbox. Microsoft sold boxes at a loss right out of the gate, making its profits when you buy games and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions instead of on the hardware alone. That’s not our speculation — it’s exactly what Microsoft told The Verge in 2021. In 2023, we learned that Microsoft may have spent $1.5 billion to make sure it could sell the Xbox Series X and S at $499 and $299 respectively, instead of what they actually cost.

But Microsoft has suggested that it’s done with hardware subsidies. “Going forward, this cannot continue,” wrote Sharma in her “Xbox reset” memo, referring to the $20 billion in content, platform, and hardware subsidies Microsoft made over the past five years.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella echoed that idea on the Hard Fork podcast: “No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested for the last 25 years, and now we have to turn this into a sustainable business.”

It isn’t just new management that’s hinting at no more subsidies: Bond primed the pump for a $1,000 box when she called Helix “a very premium, very high-end curated experience” late last year, comparing it to gaming PCs like the $1,000 Xbox Ally X handheld.

Perhaps Microsoft has changed its mind since then. “We are working very hard to rethink everything that we can about Helix,” Ball said in June, referring to affordability. “The plan’s the plan until it’s not the plan,” Sharma said in February (though not about affordability specifically).

But subsidies would be a tremendous risk if the Helix still plays PC games in addition to Xbox ones. Valve’s Steam is by far the dominant PC gaming platform — so PC gamers who buy a Helix won’t help Microsoft recoup its money.

Subscription: “Get it free with 36 months of Xbox Game Pass and qualifying trade-in”

There’s another way Microsoft could subsidize a $1,200 Xbox.

Today, AT&T will give you a $1,200 iPhone 18 Pro for $0* — if you lock yourself into 36 months of AT&T phone service that costs $100 or more per month and trade in a recent phone, too.

Microsoft could do the same with a new, pricier tier of its Xbox Game Pass game subscription service, effectively bundling the games with the console and making you slowly pay for both at the same time. Perhaps you’ll have the option to buy an “unlocked” Xbox for full price, but it won’t be the norm.

To make it happen directly, Microsoft would need a pricier new tier of Xbox Game Pass, which wouldn’t necessarily align with the company’s recent moves. Sharma actually cut the price of Game Pass Ultimate to $22.99 a month in April, writing that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players,” while removing Call of Duty games and unlimited access to Xbox Cloud Gaming from the deal.

I don’t know if it would work. People feel naked leaving the house without phone service. They might not feel the same about games. Subscription fatigue is real. But if it worked, Microsoft’s moat would be stronger than ever. You’ll be more likely to play the games you’ve already paid for and are committed to keep paying for. Many would get sucked into a profitable upgrade cycle, just like they do with phones, since they can buy the next Xbox for “$0” as soon as it comes out.

Cellphone subsidies have been around nearly as long as pricey phones: The 1994 IBM Simon, arguably the first smartphone, eventually cost half its $1,100 price tag if you signed a contract with BellSouth. My first phone, a Kyocera QCP-6035 with a built-in PalmPilot, was subsidized when it arrived in 2001. So it’s not exactly a “radical new business model,” but it would be new for game consoles.

Rental: Maybe most people won’t own a Helix themselves

It’s also possible that Microsoft simply doesn’t plan to sell a console to the masses anymore — it can sell an $1,800 Xbox to those who can afford “video game ownership” and try to hook everyone else on the Netflix model.

After all, the “K-shaped economy” and RAMageddon have already made gaming PCs and existing game consoles into luxury goods. Society’s wealthier individuals seem perfectly happy to pay inflated prices for the few consoles Sony and Microsoft still pump out.

While PS5 sales plummeted after Sony’s price hikes, that may have been about component shortages rather than decreased demand. Xbox sales reportedly rose over a similar period, and Microsoft has justified repeated, dramatic price hikes on its consoles since May 2025.

“I can tell you definitively, demand for our console exceeds supply. We are putting them in as many stores as possible, we are producing them as quickly as possible. There is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that,” Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball told The Game Business in June, blaming RAM shortages.

But Microsoft has another way of giving less affluent people access to “next-gen” Xbox power. It can rent you one. The company just launched pay-as-you-go cloud gaming starting at $3.99 for 10 hours of cloud gaming (50 hours for $11.99).

Maybe all of Microsoft’s recent talk about affordability isn’t about the masses owning a next-gen console. Maybe it’s about finding an affordable way for people to “play Xbox” without owning the games at all.

The next gen is the current gen

After Fortune’s report, some of the very first reactions I saw boiled down to this: “I’m out. Forget next gen, I’m going to stick with my existing Xbox/PlayStation/Switch.”

That’ll be the reality for many people if the Xbox costs over a thousand bucks. But if the RAM shortage continues — if Microsoft knows it’ll sell every Xbox it can make to wealthy individuals because it can’t make a lot — it’s not necessarily a huge risk to sell it sky-high on day one.

Perhaps the Xbox Helix will be an early adopter console, the same way the iPhone Duo is an early adopter phone, the same way the Steam Frame is an early adopter headset. These products are selling out instantly despite their high price tags, leaving many would-be buyers in the cold. They’re shipping messy and unfinished, but that’s okay because early adopters want to come along for the ride.

Microsoft knows the same is true of some Xbox buyers, because it helped ship an unfinished $1,000 Xbox Ally X handheld even before the RAM crisis, and the $1,300 Xbox Ally X20 follow-up is already sold out.

But if Microsoft splits the Xbox audience into “have” and “have-not,” it means the next generation won’t truly arrive. Game developers won’t spend all their effort targeting a console people can’t buy. The next Xbox won’t be any more necessary than a PS5 Pro if you already own a PS5. In industry lingo, the Helix would be a “mid-cycle refresh” instead of true next gen.

I wouldn’t hate that, though, and neither would many video game execs. They’ve long complained that the pace of technology has ballooned the cost of building a video game to unsustainable levels, leading to today’s world where too many development teams are cut to the bone right after their games ship.

Former PlayStation and Xbox execs like Shuhei Yoshida, Shawn Layden, and Mike Ybarra have argued that the next gen isn’t necessary.

“Stick with PS5 Pro/Series X until prices normalize. The capabilities of those boxes are both fine for 99% of the audience. No one is screaming ‘I need a more powerful console’ right now,” Ybarra tweeted on October 20th.

“I think [Sony and Nintendo] should try to keep the current generation as long as possible, because I think people are very happy using PS5 and Switch 2,” Yoshida told me on The Vergecast.

“I think we’ve plateaued on the tech, frankly,” Layden told GamesIndustry.biz in 2025. (He’s said similar before and since.) “Make it cheaper and simpler. Let’s do that instead. And let’s find a way to have more hardware companies participate.”

Microsoft and its chip partner AMD have already taken one step to help extend the current generation — AMD’s performance-enhancing FSR 4.1 is coming to Xbox Series S and X, which should make it easier for both to deliver crisp 4K images to your TV.

Pay what you can afford

Even if Microsoft ships a $1,800 console, the company’s been clear it won’t be the only Xbox you can buy. Sharma has publicly said that Helix will be a “family of devices,” which has been broadly interpreted to mean that Microsoft will let PC industry partners like Asus sell their own “Xbox” as well.

If the reporting pans out, that wouldn’t just be a cobranded Xbox Ally handheld that runs Windows — Asus could make a console-shaped box that runs a Windows-based Xbox OS, too.

Some of those partners could offer more affordable, less powerful Xboxes than Microsoft’s own flagship box, perhaps with less storage and memory. Microsoft, too, might have creative solutions for storage, like how the company shipped the Xbox 360 with different-size hard drives, or none at all, to make it more affordable. “We will have to empower customers to have very flexible storage offerings,” Sharma said in June.

Or you could buy another Xbox that’s likely going to continue to count as part of Microsoft’s “family”: the existing Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

This can all work because games don’t need to target a single console anymore; they haven’t needed to for a long time. An Xbox One game runs on an Xbox One X and an Xbox Series S and an Xbox Series X because they’re all effectively AMD-powered Windows PCs, just with different amounts of performance on tap. The Xbox Helix is a powerful extension of the same continuum. The same is true of PlayStation 4, PS4 Pro, PS5, PS5 Pro, and presumably PS6, minus the Windows part.

Perhaps a particular piece of hardware will stand out as the one developers should target as the baseline for “it looks and runs great on Xbox,” the same way the Steam Deck handheld became a baseline for PC game developers starting in 2022. Maybe, like the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch, it’ll help reset our expectations of what a top-shelf game needs to look like.

At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the existing Xbox Series S will be the one. But it could also be Microsoft’s own next handheld Xbox. Fortune’s insiders say it’s coming holiday 2027.

Last year’s Antigravity A1 is the best beginner drone I’ve ever tried. I put a friend who’d never flown into its virtual cockpit and didn’t worry one bit. The A1’s also nice for people who’d prefer to think about flying rather than filming, because you can reframe its 360-degree footage after.

But until today, that meant wearing the company’s FPV goggles and spending upwards of $1,599 on the complete set. Now, Antigravity is halving the price of entry to $799 in the US with a new “Follow Me” kit that replaces the original headset and motion controller with a wristwatch and ring instead.

The idea is that Antigravity can be your robot cameraman, automatically flying, following, and filming you with a minimum of gear.

I took the new kit for several test drives this fall, and I’m cautiously impressed.

Instead of powering on a headset and finding a safe place to sit while you block out the world, you can now pull a drone and a watch out of your bag, power them both on, hold a button to launch the drone from your hand, then walk or ride while the Antigravity A1 automatically films and follows you, dodging obstacles along the way.

You can even wave your arm like a magic wand to nudge the drone left, right, down, up, towards, or away while it’s filming. You get a swipeable preview of what the drone sees on the watch’s touchscreen, and can select various quickshots there or summon a couple of sliders (forward/backward, ascend/descend) to manually fly the A1 out of a jam. The ring doesn’t do anything you can’t already do with the watch; it’s just an extra button so you can launch and reposition it one-handed.

As I discovered after three crashes, the A1 is not yet intelligent enough to dodge everything or stay with me through thick and thin. I took it all around my neighborhood on a kick scooter, and you might want to be careful around power lines, thin branches, or the vertical guy wires holding utility poles in place.

There’s also a lot of rough edges I hope Antigravity will fix, like the sluggish experience swiping around the touchscreen, or how it won’t land on my hand without switching back to manual mode, or how I can’t get it to automatically start tracking and filming me — I always have to find myself on the watch screen, tap on myself, then tap another button to begin. I also ran into an issue where it wouldn’t follow me once I crested a high hill, because it thought it was flying at too high an altitude.

Most of all, I hope Antigravity will figure out how to keep the drone from drifting out into the street or over a neighbor’s fence when I tell it to follow right behind. It’s far smaller than me, so anywhere I go, I feel like it should fit!

But as you’ll hopefully see in my video higher up this story (also on Instagram/TikTok) it’s not bad at following me through a dense suburban environment! None of my crashes so far have crippled the drone, and I like how the watch automatically plays the last seconds of footage from before a crash. It made it very easy to find the drone after.

Antigravity’s new full-coverage propeller guards can also help in case of impact; I saw the drone bounce right off one obstacle and keep flying. They’re included in the $799 set, though existing Antigravity A1 owners can buy the accessories too: it’s $340 for the watch and ring, and $40 for the guards, with a 20 percent discount for those who can prove they already own the aircraft.

Antigravity’s A1 is kind of like the folding Skydio I wish that company had made before it left consumers behind to serve industry instead. The self-flying Skydio 2 similarly had a few crashes in my tests and wouldn’t always stay in its lane. But I’ve long wanted a folding version I could easily stick in a bag, and the Antigravity A1 seems like the next best thing.