Here’s What Reviewers Are Saying About the Humane Pin

With the publicity for a long time Human AI Pin finally in the streets on Thursday, those holding hands until their knuckles turn white in anticipation since its debut last November You might want to wait a bit before spending $699 (plus a $24 per month subscription) on the little portable chatbot. The reviews have been rife and so far, no one who has gotten their hands on one has come away ecstatic over the wearable AI. The best that can be said at the moment is that it’s a unique novelty, but those who have used it say that it is slow, lacking in features and sometimes even does not does not work.

It’s an expensive device, to be sure, even for something Humane describes as your “second brain.” The portable pin with built-in microphone and camera costs as much as an upper mid-range phone, but you’ll also be stuck spending $24 a month for unlimited talk, texts, and data. This is limited to T-Mobile, although Humane promises more overseas telecom connectivity with SK Telecom and SoftBank. The device itself is powered by its own operating system, dubbed Cosmos. Humane has committed to having some of the AI ​​run on the device while more of the processing is handled in the cloud. However, unlike a smartphone, it’s more of a hands-off experience. You press and hold the button to talk to him, hence all the comparisons to Star Trek communicators.

The Pin is supposed to do what you ask without needing to scroll or manage your apps. He also has visual abilities that should allow him to understand his surroundings when you ask him to (emphasis on should). Humane says the Pin should be able to make calls, send texts, take photos, and even listen to music with a Tidal subscription. It also contains a small projection that should be able to display a few images in front of you in the palm of your hand. It’s an all-in-one device with no user interface except the ability to tap and talk to it.

The thing is, you might not even get a response when you try to enable it. David Pierce at The edge claimed he was still optimistic about wearable AI technology, but he said no one should go out and buy the Humane Pin in its current state. He found it slow to respond and too often uninformed, and yet it still lacks features that would seem essential for a device like the AI ​​Pin, such as email. The device will refuse to answer questions like “Is this bag of chips good for me?” » even with its vision technology installed.

It’s also incredibly buggy and seemingly incomplete. Pierce said the pin would not respond to a simple request to play a single Beyoncé song. Instead, he launched into a rant explaining Humane’s backend instructions for AI when a user requests music. When you want to ask a simple question about the weather, it can take nearly 10 seconds for the pin to give you an answer. Even though we all love to ridicule Siri and other digital assistants, at least this program will provide an answer in a few heartbeats. It takes just as long to send a simple text message to a friend.

Bethany Borgiorno, co-founder of Humane and former designer at Apple, wrote in a statement: “You can naturally capture a moment, it can remember something for you or answer questions… The more you tell your Ai Pin, the more useful it is. it will become for you. The company recently experienced a series of layoffs, leading some to worry that the device might not have everything it promised at launch.

Knowing that critics would point out the lack of features, Humane claimed to have a long roadmap with plans to expand the Pin’s capabilities. First on the list is “vision,” which should allow the AI ​​to identify objects and locations, although critics have noted that the Pin’s current vision ability is spotty at best. He misidentified Ryde’s IPO sign on Wall Street as “Lyft.”

Julian Chokkattu from Wired He also became concerned when he discovered that AI had lied to him about California’s ban on high-fructose corn syrup. He also misidentified a temple in Thailand as another temple in Cambodia. As many journalists and researchers have repeatedly pointed out, The AI ​​liesand he does it with extreme confidence.

Reviewers said the hardware feels sturdy and feels quite “natural” to use, according to Chris Velazco of The Washington Post-even something like putting your palm in front of the device to see if the projector is working. However, it is difficult to use gestures to control the projection and it is impossible to see the messages in sunlight.

And despite the device’s build quality, several reviewers noted that the way the battery extender pack is positioned (connected to the underside of the pin under your shirt to hold it in place) means it can start to heat up fairly quickly. . The spindle has a built-in battery, but the repeater should keep it running longer. The heat accumulated by the battery is particularly problematic if it is placed next to or on your skin. Valazco said the spindle had a tendency to overheat, forcing it to shut down until it cooled.

A few other features are built in, but you can’t trust them to work all the time. Reviewers marveled at the speed and accuracy of the real-time translations, although Scott Stein Cnet wrote that the pin sometimes got stuck in a different language after translating part of his speech.

Bongiorno told The Verge that the company is working on a software update planned for this summer to add timers, calendar access and apparently more. Perhaps Humane should have delayed the release until its device reached feature parity with its initial promises if that is the case.

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