Humane AI Pin review: not even close

misk@sopuli.xyz to Technology@lemmy.world – 138 points –
Humane AI Pin review: not even close
theverge.com
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I don't often actively root for tech to fail. Even if it's something g dumb, it can pave the road for something down the road. However, I'm here for the failure of this because it's been so nebulous.

I don't know how to explain it, but this kind of feels like when people were trying to make products where the main hook was blockchain and they seemed to have worked backwards from the tech to a product to the problem being the last thing considered.

As far as I can tell, the only advantage this thing has that a smarter smart watch can provide is taking photos and videos. So maybe there is something there that is worth exploring. Who knows, maybe if apple or Google released this with robust integration and a reasonable price, maybe it could have some potential to have a use case. Maybe GoPro might want to explore the form factor? All that said, none of the things that I think have potential has nothing to do with AI which is what they think is feature #1.

From the article I've learnt that it's voice controlled. If it could be just a peripheral for a phone that catches hand gestures and controls multimedia, it may be a fun thing for a week, and probably a new niche way of using and controlling devices. With phone-enabled home assistant app - an integration with it too. And decoding sign language as an obvious bonus and a social value point.

Honestly, I could've bought it if it was that and also customizable with free gesture recording and assigning to commands.

It has a secondary interaction interface that's novel - if you hold your hand at the right position, it projects data or controls into your palm which can then be navigated by tilting your hand and "clicking" with a finger tap gesture. This interface is also more private, and used for entering your pin to unlock the device, but can be used for other interactions like viewing long form responses to voice prompts where you can scroll through the data rather than trying to absorb everything as it's spoken (or if you don't want to have a spoken reply).

It's an interesting concept, but I tend to agree with the user you replied to in that this is a solution in search of a problem.

It’s voice controlled, but also you have to tap it to start up an interaction. Maybe there’s a wake word I didn’t see in any of the reviews I watched, but I don’t know.

So in that regard, it’s less easy to use than saying “Siri, …” to your watch or phone.