this The demise of humanity Perhaps the most predictable technical story of 2025. The company tries to Build some buzz In the second half of 2023, around its AI PIN, the device was marketed as a smartphone alternative and raised the fact that the human co-founder was a former Apple employee. The problem is that it is not clear what the AI PIN can prove its $700 asking price (plus a $24 subscription) will do.
Soon, things disappeared. AI PIN posted to some of the worst reviews I’ve seen in consumer technology products in April 2024. A month after the release, it was reported that the company had already Try to obtain – Absurdity for positives of $750 million to $1 billion. Meanwhile, there are rumors that Humane sold only 10,000 pins, which is far from the 100,000 shouts they planned. HP was appointed as a potential suitor last May, and the company cleverly waited for them to pick humans for $116 million.
It turns out that waving your hands and yelling AI’s promises doesn’t make it easier to build compelling hardware – We lashed out It has a high price, horrible battery life, slow performance, excessive heat and difficult to use projection display. (Engadget is far from the only publication arrive viscerate this device)
For devices where the main interface is a conversation, AI PIN has the challenge of answering questions or executing commands that make it an initiator. Even if it does what it is asking, it operates in some weird way, such as sending generic text, rather than getting you to exactly what you want to say. Its cameras rarely work as expected; after taking pictures and viewing them on the projector, the PIN becomes very warm and sometimes completely shut down. Speaking of that projection screen, it is almost impossible to see it outdoors even on cloudy days. Interacting with it makes our commenter Cherlynn Low want “RIP [her] Eye. ”
Oh, don’t forget, recalled its extended battery case, because This is a comprehensive fire hazardWoolen cloth
The whole fantasy is an explanatory example of how most consumer-grade AI prepares for prime time. Google and Apple may be trying to push Gemini and Apple Intelligence to almost every product we make, but these tools are additive and are based on a strong foundation for each company’s existing platform. As far as humanity is concerned, there is nothing to be paid attention to. And, the terrible combination of voice response and recognition with the projector display is totally unprepared (not to mention other hardware failures) is really too much to overcome.
There is no intelligence found here or elsewhere.
To be fair, it is well known that building hardware is difficult. Even if you talk about big companies like Apple, first-generation products often have obvious flaws. The first iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch may show great promise, but they also have strange omissions and performance issues that make it hard for them to recommend to everyone.
Some companies have managed to figure it out. Pebbles is a great example of a hardware startup that survived some early problems to find some success. It beat Apple, Samsung and Google to the smartwatch market and did it in a way that hasn’t been imitated yet (perhaps that’s why the company is resurrection). Pebbles aren’t the most elegant hardware, but watches and their software work so well that they pave the way for the more advanced smartwatches we have today. Of course, that’s not enough to keep the pebble alive, as the company eventually filed for bankruptcy and picked up the assets by Fitbit (if you keep track, the company was later purchased by Google).
Humane isn’t quite different at launch – it’s trying to completely build a new type of hardware, and history tells us that the first products in the new space will be far from perfect. But if there is at least a trace of useful software, humans may have survived to improve hardware problems in future versions. But its assistant is so Bad, it kills any potential of AI PIN. There is no intelligence found here or elsewhere.
What I gained from humanitarian disasters is that it is too early to spend your hard-earned money on AI’s promises – a market that has not yet been consolidated, and trusting a brand new company like Humane to make this kind of thing right a few The bridge is too much. (If you don’t believe it, please take a look Similar to the defective rabbit R1. ) Apple Intelligence is still semi-baked at best, but at least you can turn it off and ignore it. However, AI PIN is totally dependent on AI, not only is it “not ready yet”, but it is one of the worst devices we have tried as a publication in nearly 21 years. For thousands of early adopters, this means their PIN will be bricked in just a few days without financial compensation. But hey, at least it can still tell you its battery level.
