OpenAI's speaker leaks before it launches, and free ChatGPT gets unlimited
Issue #010 · 4 min read
OpenAI's speaker leaks before it launches, and free ChatGPT gets unlimited
A $300-400 hockey puck, unlimited free chats, and Anthropic building its own chips.
The big story
OpenAI's first hardware product is leaking out in pieces, and none of the pieces sound cheap.
New reporting says the device — designed with Jony Ive — is a smart speaker about the size of a hockey puck, priced between $300 and $400, according to TechCrunch.
That's a real product, not a toy. It's priced closer to a premium home speaker than a gadget you buy on impulse.
The Verge adds the physical detail: hockey-puck-sized, battery powered, meant to sit in a room rather than live in your pocket.
Neither report comes from OpenAI directly. Both are describing a product nobody at OpenAI has confirmed on the record.
For product people, the interesting part isn't the puck. It's the price.
$300 to $400 puts this above what most people pay for a smart speaker today, which means OpenAI is betting the model behind it, not the hardware, is worth the premium.
If that bet is wrong, the reviews will say so within a week of launch.
What shipped
ChatGPT free users just got unlimited text chats. OpenAI confirmed it in its own post on improving GPT-5.6 Sol and expanding GPT-5.6 Luna access — free and Go users now get "unlimited everyday chats" with Luna, plus a new think button for harder questions, per TechCrunch and The Verge.
If you're pricing a product against ChatGPT's free tier, that tier just got a lot more usable. Rate limits were one of the last reasons to pay.
Kimi K3 landed in GitHub Copilot, billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing, according to the GitHub changelog. One more model choice inside a tool your engineers already have open — worth a quick look if you're comparing model costs across a Copilot seat.
Anthropic says it will design its own chips to run Claude, rather than depend entirely on Nvidia, per Ars Technica. This is an infrastructure move, not something that changes your roadmap this quarter — but it's the same play OpenAI is making, and it says both companies expect the current chip supply to be a bottleneck for years, not months.
What I'd actually do this week
Re-test your free-tier assumptions. If your pricing model leans on "ChatGPT free is rate-limited so users upgrade," that lever just got weaker. Go check what your own free tier still offers that ChatGPT's doesn't.
If you're evaluating Copilot model costs, add Kimi K3 to the comparison. It's billed at provider list price, so the real number is easy to check before you commit a team to it.
Hold off on any smart-speaker roadmap reaction until OpenAI actually confirms the device. Two outlets reporting the same leak is not a launch — don't let a rumor reshape a planning meeting.
Reply and tell me what you're seeing on your side — I read every one.