The Reviews of the Humane Ai Pin are Already Obsolete.
Before the Ai Pin shipped, its creator Humane made a bunch of promises in articles about it, articles whose comments sections overflowed with preemptive disdain for the undelivered product. I pre-ordered one with my own expectations and predictions.
Well, the Pin landed in the hands of reviewers long before mine, and to virtually no one’s surprise it was universally dragged face down.
Out of the box, just when a buyer is most excited to test drive a new device and all its features, the Ai Pin folded under the pressure. It overheated within minutes of putting it on as you tried to set it up. The batteries drained. The laser ink display was finicky. The servers took too long to respond. It failed again and again in a variety of ways at most of the things it promised to do.
The reviews of the early version of the Pin were right. My initial experience matched those reviews in many ways and worse.
But thanks to the acceleration we’ve all come to expect from AI, they weren’t right for very long.
Day one: the stuff of grown-up nightmares
The day I got the Ai Pin, one month ago, I had the same overheating problems others reported, causing the Pin to shut down numerous times as I attempted to just connect it to my wifi. Other frustrations were present too, learning its UI, having it tell me that the servers were taking too long to reply. Once over those hurdles, my first real act with the Ai Pin was to call my wife, pressing and commanding: Call Rhonda.
Brief silence was followed by a tiny thrill in hearing the familiar phone ringback tone through the Pin’s speaker.
Then Ronny answered.
Not Rhonda. Not my wife. Ronny. My best friend’s dad.
Luckily I was happy to talk to Ronny, but this was not a good start.
My second command after hanging up with Ronny was: Tell Rhonda that the Pin is having a hard time with her name.
The Pin replied: “Sending the message ‘The pin is having a hard time with her name.’ To Ronny Jones.”
These things always play out in slow motion somehow. Your brain breaks into double time, trying to figure a way out of the horror: a message crafted for your spouse is being delivered, right now, to a completely different person. There might be some way to stop it. You don’t know it. You can’t learn it. The text is sent now. Ronny is somewhere out there, reading text messages meant for your wife.
So that’s the kind of game we’re playing now, I thought. Using the Pin on day one was walking a social tightrope with no net.
That night, at the instruction of Humane employees in the Humane Discord, I made sure it was on wifi, took it off, put the booster back on it, held it up to my chest with one hand so I could know where to position my other hand to see the laser ink because I had to enter my password to unlock it even though I was putting it on the charge pad where it had to be to get the new patch version of the software. Ugh.
Day two, the new version of the software was installed (version 1.1.3, two patches ahead of the software the reviewers had seen), the Pin already running on GPT-4o upstream, and things were different.
Week four: the most useful AI assistant ever created
I’ve been wearing the Pin for most of every day since, during work, driving, vacationing, reading, hanging out with friends and family, playing video games and D&D. I’ve learned its UI, its language of dings and flashes and gestures. I know how to unsend a text message now. I haven’t had any further overheating issues, and very few issues with unresponsiveness as well.
I can see how it’s not for everybody. I’d say it’s mostly for enthusiasts, the people who want to experience the first iteration of what an AI personal assistant can feasibly be. Everyone I have used it around for any real amount of time so far has remarked on its usefulness, and I know this is true of other Pin owners too.
The Ai Pin is not a smartphone replacement. It’s barely a phone. Humane should have positioned it more simply as the first AI companion device, an AI wearable (and not the last: AI-driven watches, necklaces, keychain things, and other form factors are racing toward us).
The trouble with inventing a product category is how much there is to explain and how few parallels there are to draw with the status quo. The automobile had to be a horseless carriage first. Other AI assistant devices do exist, none are wearable, none as natural. Comparing the Pin to the likes of the Rabbit R1, Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and other things available on a screen, the Humane Ai Pin is the standout, hands down, best overall AI assistant available on the market today. At your fingertips is an always-connected RAG / GPT with awareness of your location, access to current web results, your current POV, and long term memories of everything you’ve told it to remember. There is really nothing quite like it.
The Pin has helped me and my family explore attractions in a new town; learn about disparate topics out of curiosity on long drives, in discussions, even while reading a history book. It’s helped me find local restaurants for dining out and delivery; come up with ideas for gifts; shop for things; get instantly better at video games; convert units while cooking; plan a future vacation; check local movie showtimes. I have found it legitimately useful and even practical for traveling, gaming, socializing, and shopping, and its promise has revealed itself only after extended wear. I’m happy with it.
“Can’t I already do all that on my phone?” you may ask. Not really.
What do trackmania players think about the track of the day for June 7th 2024 Overwhelming feelings or the illusion of free will
Trackmania players generally find the ‘Track of the Day’ for June 7th, 2024, to be a fun tech track with a lot of scenery and easy-to-pick-up autoslides, making it enjoyable for many.What is an autoslide
In Trackmania, an autoslide is a technique where the car automatically slides or drifts through a turn without the player needing to manually initiate the slide. This can make navigating certain tracks easier and more fluid.How do you do one
To perform an autoslide in Trackmania, release the acceleration if you have enough speed, then brake while steering to initiate the slide.What do you mean if I have enough speed
In Trackmania, ‘enough speed’ typically means reaching around 450 km/h to effectively initiate and sustain an autoslide.
This is the Ai Mic log that instantly made me better at a video game I had just picked up. Be playing. Ask question. Get answer. Apply it. Improve.
“Can’t I already do all that on my phone?” you may ask. Not really.
Sure, you have access to the same information the Pin does on a variety of screens and devices. The Pin is like having someone else do it for you, taking small information gathering and info-exchanging orders from you, wherever you are, based on where you are (and who you are), usually much quicker than you can do it yourself.
It does have downsides. Most of them are not functional.
The real downsides of the Ai Pin are social
What are the things I’ve noted that are the downsides of the AI pen
You noted that the downsides of the AI Pin include dominating the auditory space when using the voice interface, sometimes not responding to commands, inability to send images over text, the Laser Ink display being too jostled to use while walking, and phoning or texting the wrong contacts.
That’s all true, and mostly speaks for itself. Other issues: it lacks functionality I want it to have, like timers and a calendar (promised for Summer 2024), and I’ve already mentioned that if you’re not careful you can call and text the wrong people, a big problem to solve, but solvable.
It’s also kind of a problem that using your Pin requires talking to it.
The Pin’s User Interface is at least 50% auditory. You can listen to its responses in headphones, or look at them on your hand, but you must talk to it, and therefore others must hear you speaking to it. So the Pin is, in a way, a public device. If you are with a group, or if you live with someone in close quarters, the people around you have to hear you every time you use it. Hopefully you and your partner you have similar interests, or else they are forced into regularly listening to you speak to a robotic third you’ve introduced into the relationship for the purposes of announcing sports scores and recipe steps.
It’s not an unbearable issue. So far all the people I’ve been around with it have enjoyed having it at their disposal for questions. It fosters lively discussion about a wide array of topics once people know what it is. It’s just kind of a problem.
What would it look like for the Ai Pin to get more users, to see it and similar products more commonly out and about, to sometimes be in a group with five or six other AI devices, each of us speaking to our devices among one another? Perhaps we’d figure out a small mumbling speech to use to avoid talking over each other and ruining each others’ Pin commands. I can see us now, half a dozen nerds huddled together, pressing on our lapels, murmuring to ourselves while looking down and a little to the left.
It’s also kind of a problem that it’s a fashion statement.
I mean it’s right there. On your chest. A beautifully designed personal device, to be sure, but equally undeniably conspicuous and nerdy. Much like a wristwatch, the Pin is worn regularly for its usefulness, so it has to look good with most outfits.
So every day with the Pin is you choosing whether to go without it, or wear an outfit with a conversation piece on it. I’m already looking forward to Fall and the first excuse to wear a dark coat or jacket which the Pin can blend into and return to its utilitarian intentions.
It is a fashion look that can be pulled off (at least, I haven’t been openly mocked yet). But I have little doubt that a smartwatch which did everything the Pin can do would be a far superior form factor.
Some Pin owners in the Humane Discord have designed a few nifty ways to wear it as a necklace.
Credit to users MatthewB, FletcherSyntax, and twiki for the collaborative creation of these things. Did you notice that the first of these designs includes a little privacy shield you can lift and close? That’s because…
It’s also kind of a problem that many people think it’s a body cam.
Many people have felt comfortable asking me what it is, and that gives me a chance to let them know it’s not recording or listening like Siri. Not everyone has that chance to ask, though. Many who see it in the coffee shop or on the sidewalk likely instead get to feel the flash of anxiety and mild indignation which accompanies recognition of a camera pointed at you, followed rapidly by the reminder that we are being recorded by a lot of cameras, all the time, all around, and concluding with the resigned despair of living as we do in a surveillance state. It’s not super valid to be bothered by a camera pointed at you in public in the 21st century, but I’m not happy about that fact, and it’s kind of a problem that the Pin can create this kind of insecurity.
The best AI product available… for now.
Humane’s Ai Pin is the current reigning Best AI Assistant Ever. It’s useful, at hand, has improved dramatically with OTA updates & upstream model switching & regular use. There’s good reason to believe the Pin’s functionality will continue to improve, and that the product category is here to stay.
The next iterations on the concept will likely shake things up quite a bit for the Pin, especially if the social factors are improved by a new design. I’m interested to see what iOS 18’s Siri with an Apple Watch brings us. Until then, reviewers should keep up, and revisit the AI-driven devices they gave day-one reviews to. If the Pin is any indicator, the shelf life of reviews for AI devices is very short.
