Humane AI Pin: Much-hyped artificial intelligence device is not about to replace your smartphone, reviews say

Reviewers describe the $700 device as ‘a promising mess you don’t need yet’ and ‘the solution to none of technology’s problems’

The Humane AI Pin clips to a user’s clothes and serves as a standalone AI-powered device (Humane)

A new AI device that claims to be able to replace smartphones has been widely panned in early reviews.

The $700 Humane AI Pin, which launched in the US on Thursday, serves as a standalone artificial intelligence assistant that clips to a user’s clothes. It offers similar functionality to a smartphone, featuring a camera, speaker, microphone and touchpad, however it eschews a conventional screen for a projector that can turn a user’s hand into a display.

Its creators claim it is the “next leap in device design”, capable of spearheading a transition to a post-smartphone future that will allow people to reconnect with the world around them.

“It interacts with the world in the way that you interact with the world – hearing what you hear, seeing what you see,” Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri said during a demonstration of the gadget last year, saying this allows it to “fade into the background of your life”.

Despite Humane’s claim that being screenless makes it “seamless”, the first judgements from reviewers suggest that it is not about to make smartphones obsolete.

Humane’s AI Pin projects lasers onto any surface, offering artificial intelligence in the palm of your hand (Humane)

Critics have called it slow, lacking features, and susceptible to overheating and shutting down. Reviewers also criticised the $24 -per-month subscription fee that customers need to pay on top of the initial $699.

The Washington Post described it as “a promising mess you don’t need yet”, while The Verge concluded that “the post-smartphone future isn’t here yet”.

The Verge editor-at-large David Pierce wrote: “There are too many basic things it can’t do, too many things it doesn’t do well enough, and too many things it does well but only sometimes that I’m hard-pressed to name a single thing it’s genuinely good at. None of this – not the hardware, not the software, not even GPT4 – is ready yet.”

Humane first showed off its AI Pin at Paris Fashion Week 2023 (Humane)

Julian Chokkattu from Wired said the AI Pin offered nothing that made him want to use it over his smartphone.

“Whenever I went out with it, I found myself barely using it,” he wrote. “I’d ask it maybe three to four things, partly just to try a feature out. I’d then get disappointed with the results.

“I know the co-founders created it as a way to stay rooted in the real world and to avoid having a screen in front of your face all the time, but to achieve that goal, this thing needs to be 100 percent reliable. All the time.”

Humane claims the device will be improved through software updates that will fix early glitches, while future hardware improvements will likely improve the quality of the camera and add functionality for the screen projection.

“We have an ambitious roadmap with software improvements, new features [and] additional partnerships,” Bethany Bongiorno, CEO and co-founder of Humane, said on Thursday. “All of this will enable your AI Pin to become smarter and more powerful over time.”

It seems until then, as Engadget put it, “The AI Pin is the solution to none of technology’s problems”.