Ember-1 vs Hy4 Preview
Ember-1 took 25 min 56 s and $1.78 at list price, Hy4 Preview took 34 min 52 s and $0.32 at list price. Hy4 Preview took 1.3× as long, and Ember-1 cost 5.5× as much.
Ember-1
Fireworks · $15.00/M out · 589 HN pts
Hy4 Preview
Tencent · $2.50/M out · 440 HN pts
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person workshop in Rotterdam dedicated to keeping vintage synthesizers alive. We work on the machines that shaped electronic music — analog polysynths, temperamental drum machines, early digital oddities — replacing tired capacitors, rebuilding keybeds, and coaxing silent oscillators back into tune.
Between us we bring decades of experience in electronics, instrument design, and music-making, but what unites us is simpler: we believe these machines were built to be played, not displayed. Every repair happens by hand at our benches, with period-correct components wherever possible and thoughtful modern solutions where reliability demands it. We test everything the only way that matters — by listening.
Whether your Juno has lost a voice, your 808 has lost its kick, or a flea-market find needs a full restoration, we treat each instrument as if it were heading back to a studio, a stage, and a long life of making noise. Because it is.
Patchbay is a three-person studio in Rotterdam with a very specific obsession: bringing vintage synthesizers back to life. We are three technicians and musicians who spend our days surrounded by circuit boards, calibration tapes, and the smell of solder, coaxing sound out of machines that have been silent for years. From wobbly oscillators and dead keys to crackling faders and drifting filters, we diagnose, repair, and restore analog instruments with the patience they deserve. Our workshop is stocked with rare spare parts, original service manuals, and a deep archive of hard-won knowledge about classics from Moog, Roland, Sequential, Korg, and ARP. We love these instruments not as museum pieces, but as living tools that still have music in them. Every synthesizer that leaves our bench is tested, played, and calibrated so it feels reliable enough for the stage, the studio, or the late-night jam that inspired it in the first place.
Specs and numbers
| Ember-1 | Hy4 Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Fireworks | Tencent |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 24 Sep 2026 | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $3.00 | $0.834 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $15.00 | $2.50 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 589 | 440 |
| Time for the six prompts | 25 min 56 s | 34 min 52 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $1.78 | $0.32 |
Hy4 Preview was cheaper: $1.46 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Ember-1 was faster: 8 min 56 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Ember-1's Breakout game plays; Hy4 Preview's loads but doesn't start.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Ember-1's rebuild matched the screenshot at 67%; Hy4 Preview was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Ember-1's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Hy4 Preview was not in it.