There’s a startup in San Francisco called Humane (or rather, hu.ma.ne if you go by the official logo and domain name), and today it’s unveiled the first product it’s been working on. It’s called Ai Pin and seems to answer the following question that no one asked: What if almost a smartphone, but with no screen and attached to your shirt? Oh, and with AI!
And that’s what it is. A honky, dorky-looking pin you put on your shirt or hoodie or blazer or whatever, and wear all day. It’s not meant to blend in at all, with a “look at me!” design that may polarize people who don’t live in Silicon Valley.
Let’s now discover what it can do. It takes 13 MP photos (videos coming soon) and sends texts, and comes with an AI virtual assistant that is based on Microsoft and OpenAI tech. We’re sure that talking to a weird looking pin on your shirt in public is going to be all the rage.
Thankfully, it has Bluetooth so you can choose not to employ the “personic speaker” which “creates a bubble of sound, offering both intimacy and volume as needed” – please just connect headphones to it and spare everyone around you from being inadvertently caught in that bubble.
You can “speak to it naturally”, and its Ai Mic “supercharges search and quickly finds and contextualizes what you’re looking for”. Furthermore, AI-powered messaging “can craft messages in your tone of voice’, and a Catch Me Up function “sorts through the noise in your inbox”.
AI-powered music experiences “come to life through a partnership with Tidal”, while “the AI-powered photographer helps you capture and recall important memories”. Ai Pin can also act as your foreign language interpreter and even support your nutrition goals by identifying food using computer vision.
The Ai Pin runs Cosmos, Humane’s OS “for the AI era”, which has no apps but blends “intelligent technologies with intuitive interaction and advanced security”. The Ai Pin “quickly understands what you need” and then connects you to the right AI experience or service instantly.
Before you scream “but battery life!”, note that it’s not always listening. Instead, in order to activate it, you need to tap and drag on its touchpad, at which point a “Trust Light” (yes, it’s really called that) will blink to let you and everyone around you know that the weird thing attached to your shirt is collecting data. It’s also got a laser, that projects stuff on your hand – it’s a makeshift solution that is supposed to alleviate its lack of a screen.
The AI Pin comes in three colors – Eclipse, Equinox, and Lunar, weighs 34g, and has a “battery booster” accessory, because of course it does, which adds another 20g. Multiple boosters can be hot swapped as they connect magnetically to the Ai Pin and wirelessly charge it.
The Ai Pin is powered by an unknown Snapdragon SoC, and costs $699 upfront for the device itself and two battery boosters, plus a $24 per month subscription that gives it a phone number and data coverage through T-Mobile. The AI Pin will ship early next year and pre-orders start on November 16.
