After less than 2 weeks I canceled my Humane AI Pin. It is an electronic device that is worn like a brooch and is connected to an AI. A bit like in Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise, where the logo on the left side of the chest looks like a communication tool when worn on the uniform.
I was originally excited when I saw the demo video last year and wanted to try it out. So I paid $700 to get in on the first deliveries and also agreed to the monthly subscription fee of $24. Then it took some time for the shipping notification to arrive, which is fine of course as hardware is heavy and delays are common. That wasn’t a problem for me.
I finally got the AI Pin delivered when I was on a plane to Europe in early May, so I couldn’t activate and test it until I got back 2.5 weeks later on May 27. And using the Humane AI pin was a pretty disappointing experience.
The reasons for disappointment
Here are my reasons:
- I always had problems activating the laser to be projected onto the hand;
- the system overheated several times after a few minutes when I tried to enter the password;
- the battery life seemed to be a problem as it is only about 2 hours or so;
- Simple functions such as “Set alarm clock” were not (yet) available;
- the whole vision thing (like the nuts in your hands shown in the video, which the system tells you how many calories they have and whether you are allergic to them) has never worked for me. I was not able to activate this function (it was also missing in humane.center);
- the answers were quite slow, between 5-10 seconds;
- I was also unable to use the various touch gestures (one finger, two fingers, sliding double tap, etc.) consistently;
- an email from June 6th about a possible fire hazard from the charging case and that you shouldn’t charge your pin with the case was just another piece of bad news;
- there was no easy way to change the volume setting; the system does not adapt to the noise level, e.g. on the street, so I constantly missed the answer;
- I was never sure whether the system had understood me and was working on the answer or not;
- I never really got it to do these magical translations or even understand myself when I speak different languages;
No delight, no killer app
As much as I’ve tried to find use cases for myself over the last few days (sometimes with new technology it takes a while to catch on), it hasn’t given me the joy or the one killer feature. I simply shelved the AI Pin and unsubscribed, even though the first 3 months are free and I hadn’t even used the AI Pin for two weeks.
Also, the availability of GPT-4o, which I subscribe to, was the final deciding factor for me. The iPhone app is simply much more powerful, faster and more accurate than the AI Pin. It recognizes and analyses images, provides helpful answers and does so quite quickly. Although you have to take your phone out of your pocket to use the app, it’s still faster and better.
Hardware is hard
Hardware is difficult, and especially in an area that is developing so quickly, you don’t stand a chance. The AI pin is both half a year too early and half a year too late. When they introduced it, it made sense, but now they need another six months to iron out the bugs and improve it. I wasn’t the only one who was disappointed with the product either, as other product reviews came to an equally scathing conclusion. I hadn’t looked at them beforehand because I first wanted to understand for myself how the device works and what it is good for.
I do believe that there will be a use for such a device, but not as it is now. I also don’t want to give the impression that I’m trying to get one over on the Humane Team. Quite the opposite: it takes courage to venture into electronic hardware and create a completely new product category from scratch. I’ve also invested too often in Kickstarter projects where nothing ever came of it. In this respect, I would like to congratulate Humane for taking a risk. However, the environment is difficult because it is so dynamic.
That was my $700 early adopter fee to stay on and ahead of the trends, but the device will now go into my box of other discarded hardware and be mothballed there. And I’m already waiting for the next exciting AI-powered electronic device that someone will probably make.