It was during the same AI hardware days when the Human AP was announced, a $700 wearable that was teased on the fashion runway and led a category of devices that hadn't yet arrived, the $200 Pocket AI and the yet-to-be-released Rewind Pendant.
Months later, the review embargo finally expired, and dozens of tech media and influencers went live with their early-adopter ideas. The overall verdict was dire.
“A promising mess,” proclaimed a Washington Post headline, while Wired said the Human AI gadget was “too bare bones,” too clunky, too limited. Things only went downhill from there.
Human AI Pin is designed as an AI-powered personal assistant, with an on-board Large Language Model (LLM) and a laser-powered, palm-pointing display. With a magnetically backed battery pack attached to your shirt, the real buzz comes from the $699 upfront price and $24 monthly subscription fee.
The idealized vision of wearable AI is a post-smartphone world, where you can access your own information and the world's information hands-free. The truth is, if human AI represents the state of the art, then we're far from a tech-utopian future.
Unanimous verdict
Early reviews aren't pretty, describing the user experience as disappointing at best and comparing it to Theranos' false promise at worst.
what's the matter? Everything, for starters. Beauty and beauty are only skin deep.
Not only is the device expensive, but it also requires an internet connection to work, making it useless in areas with poor connectivity, according to popular YouTube tech reviewer Arun Main.
The title of the 23-minute video review reads: “I Tested the Viral Human AP.” “It's a nightmare.” Maine says the device is difficult to use, has a slow and unresponsive touchpad, and broadcasts your voice interactions to everyone within earshot.
“I don't think I've ever wanted to love technology so much and still can't,” he says.
High tech podcaster Marcus Brownlee echoed these sentiments, saying the device is frustratingly slow and lacks strong integration with other devices. They also said the device has heavy and inconsistent battery consumption.
Brownlee charitably allows that there's still a good use case for the pin, saying that if you want to ditch your smartphone, “you can do that today with the Human Pin,” a handy piece of metal and glass. But “it takes longer to do a lot of things, you do more things than the first time, your photos look worse, you're less capable.
“You'll have a new phone number, you'll have to charge another device… but less screen time,” he continued. “Mission Accomplished.”
MacRumors' Steve Moser was equally unimpressed, saying that the device's functionality doesn't exceed that of a smartphone and that it doesn't integrate with traditional phone services, complicating the messaging experience. It also suggests that the device is an expensive product with a very expensive subscription for a low-cost device.
Given the speed of the AI hype cycle, Moser said, Human was simply too slow out of the gate.
The Verge was even more upset in their review, saying that the device was “completely incomplete and completely broken in many unacceptable ways.”
“Should you buy this thing? That's easy. No. Nuh-er. Absolutely not,” wrote Verge editor David Pearce in his extended review. There are a lot of basics that it doesn't do, a lot of things that don't work well enough, and a lot of things that work well, but sometimes I have a hard time mentioning one thing.”
The Washington Post called out the Human A Pin camera, which it said produced grainy and blurry images in low light, before concluding that the AI assistant “produces results that are far from useless.”
“But if there's a lesson here, it's better to force ourselves to use what we already have judiciously than to stare at a new device that promises to fix our problems,” writes Chris Velasco.
Wired similarly points out that the device can't do anything a smartphone can't do, and in most cases the smartphone can do it better.
Call and respond
Human is aware of the storm of bad reviews, and has promised some updates for this summer, including nutrition recommendations, agents, more sound settings, photo sharing via SMS, timers and clocks, reminders, flexible UI, push support, gestures and translations—on smartphones. All features fine tuned.
A software development kit (SDK) is being developed to extend the capabilities of Human AI PIN. Perhaps the Pin will have its iPhone moment when developers can build third-party apps for this particular hardware.
But don't hold your breath.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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