In his TED talk, Co-Founder of Humane, Imran Chaudri stated: “We like to say that the experience is screenless, seamless, and sensing. Allowing you to access the power of compute while remaining present in your surroundings, fixing a balance that’s felt out of place for some time now.” 

He continued: “We believe AI presents a huge opportunity for us to redefine our relationship to technology and that it will enable personal mobile computing to become faster, more powerful and easier to use. The first Humane device will allow people to bring AI with them everywhere and we’re really looking forward to revealing more at our launch later this year.”

The Humane AI Pin is a screenless, standalone device and software platform. The wearable uses a range of sensors that enable natural and intuitive interactions and was designed to weave seamlessly into users’ day-to-day lives.

Unfortunately, upon its release, the AI pin has been met with a lot of negative reviews.

In his review of the pin, YouTuber and tech reviewer, Marques Brownlee, commented: “This thing is bad at almost everything it does, almost all the time” and dubbed it “the worst product I’ve ever reviewed.”

Demonstrating the product, Brownlee shows that the pin is slow to respond, and the information it gives is often wrong. Asking basic information that can be Googled, the pin got answers wrong, or simply couldn’t understand what was being asked of it. He also mentions that, while not actively using the gadget, the battery died in around two hours, but the battery has also lasted up to four hours at other times, and requires a lot of charging and swapping of its battery boosters. The pin often overheats and consistently remains very warm, which is not ideal for a wearable that is supposed to seamlessly integrate with the wearer’s life.

In a review by The Verge, David Pierce comments: “The AI Pin is an interesting idea that is so thoroughly unfinished and so totally broken in so many unacceptable ways that I can’t think of anyone to whom I’d recommend spending the $699 for the device and the $24 monthly subscription.”

He continued: “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.”

Responding to Brownlee’s review and criticism, Humane’s Head of New Media, Sam Sheffer, wrote on X: “Feedback is a gift. We reflect and we listen and we learn and we continue building.”

Currently, the AI Pin is only available in the US, and costs $700, as well as a monthly $24.99 monthly subscription. While it has its own phone number, the pin is unable to be connected to a smartphone, meaning integration into a user’s daily life isn’t very easy.

According to The Verge, the Co-Founders told Pierce: “We have an ambitious roadmap with software refinements, new features, additional partnerships, and our SDK. All of this will enable your AI Pin to become smarter and more powerful over time.”

For a product that was seen as the gadget to rival smartphones prior to its release, it doesn’t seem as though the smartphone’s place in the world will be shaken anytime soon.