Watching the video showed me just how half-baked this product is. So many basic features are not supported yet. It’s honestly laughable. The tech industry keeps pushing the envelope on how soon they can “sell” you any type of hardware with unfinished software.
Five to ten seconds wait for a voice command kills any chance for this being a viable product. If they can't bring down the response turnaround time to two or three seconds, this product is dead on arrival. It's not worth discussing anything else until they can do that.
Different strokes for different folks but I wouldn’t want a voice-controlled “smart” brooch if it was free and worked flawlessly.
It also seems like it should be a Bluetooth phone accessory that cost $99 or whatever. I wear a smartwatch so still not for me but maybe if they made it stylish (or just less conspicuous and geeky), it could fill a gap in the market? Some of my friends wear traditional fashion watches, bracelets, etc. and usually leave their phone in their purse. They might like the form factor as a way to stay minimally connected in case the baby sitter calls or whatever.
They've been over-promising on this product for more than ten years now. I remember watching promotional videos no later than 2013 for this exact product under the same Humane name. It's honestly kind of impressive that they kept their over-promising in lock-step with the progression of technology.
Interesting tech, but I can't imagine trying to spend my entire day working with a dysfunctional equivalent of a Siri assistant. It can't even set timers, what a strange feature omission.
Still, even after all this frustration, after spending hours standing in front of restaurants tapping my chest and whispering questions that go unanswered, I find I want what Humane is selling even more than I expected. A one-tap way to say, “Text Anna and tell her I’ll be home in a half-hour,” or “Remember to call Mike tomorrow afternoon,” or “Take a picture of this and add it to my shopping list” would be amazing. I hadn’t realized how much of my phone usage consists of these one-step things, all of which would be easier and faster without the friction and distraction of my phone.
But the AI Pin doesn’t work. I don’t know how else to say it.
Upshot: intriguing category, half-baked device. Even worse when considering the cost.
This group of devices feels like it should absolutely start out as a slight tweak of watch hardware and the rest of the R&D should be improving the phone's AI assistant capabilities. Until it's ready to replace the phone, it won't, so build toward a future where people will accept it once it's technically feasible.
I don't often actively root for tech to fail. Even if it's something g dumb, it can pave the road for something down the road. However, I'm here for the failure of this because it's been so nebulous.
I don't know how to explain it, but this kind of feels like when people were trying to make products where the main hook was blockchain and they seemed to have worked backwards from the tech to a product to the problem being the last thing considered.
As far as I can tell, the only advantage this thing has that a smarter smart watch can provide is taking photos and videos. So maybe there is something there that is worth exploring. Who knows, maybe if apple or Google released this with robust integration and a reasonable price, maybe it could have some potential to have a use case. Maybe GoPro might want to explore the form factor? All that said, none of the things that I think have potential has nothing to do with AI which is what they think is feature #1.
From the article I've learnt that it's voice controlled. If it could be just a peripheral for a phone that catches hand gestures and controls multimedia, it may be a fun thing for a week, and probably a new niche way of using and controlling devices. With phone-enabled home assistant app - an integration with it too. And decoding sign language as an obvious bonus and a social value point.
Honestly, I could've bought it if it was that and also customizable with free gesture recording and assigning to commands.
It has a secondary interaction interface that's novel - if you hold your hand at the right position, it projects data or controls into your palm which can then be navigated by tilting your hand and "clicking" with a finger tap gesture. This interface is also more private, and used for entering your pin to unlock the device, but can be used for other interactions like viewing long form responses to voice prompts where you can scroll through the data rather than trying to absorb everything as it's spoken (or if you don't want to have a spoken reply).
It's an interesting concept, but I tend to agree with the user you replied to in that this is a solution in search of a problem.
It’s voice controlled, but also you have to tap it to start up an interaction. Maybe there’s a wake word I didn’t see in any of the reviews I watched, but I don’t know.
So in that regard, it’s less easy to use than saying “Siri, …” to your watch or phone.
That was my thought, someone watched Star Trek and wanted to give it a go. I am always in favor of pursuing Star Trek tech so I hope this makes improvements.
