Humane AI Pin: In Review

Humane, founded by ex-apple employees Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, has finally released its first, much-anticipated product: the Humane AI pin. Available for pre-order now at $699—Humane aims to replace smartphones with the AI pin by providing ease of use in ways that your standard phone does not.

Features:

Laser Ink Display: Unlike traditional mobile devices that use a touchscreen, the AI pin utilizes a Laser ink display projected onto the user’s hand. The user can then tilt their hand to navigate menus and close their fingers to make selections.

Touch gestures: Although the AI pin does not feature a touchscreen, gestures such as taps and swipes are still usable for answering calls, controlling the volume, taking pictures, and using the touchpad on the device.

AI assistant: Powered by ChatGPT-4, the AI assistant Humane uses is the core feature of the AI pin. It can create notes of important information, which it can use in its answers. It can also brief the user on text messages and mail received upon request, using the phrase “catch me up.” Additionally, it can learn what takes priority and filter notifications and calls from people important to the user.

Using the camera integrated into the pin, it can use computer vision to analyze objects shown to it. Questions about the shown object can then be asked; for example, if shown food, the user can ask the amount of a certain nutrient it has or if the user can eat it with a goal they have set. Live translation while talking to people is also possible using AI.

Trust Light: The light bar on the top of the pin lets the user know when and for what it is being used.

Customizability:

The AI pin has three variants: Eclipse, Equinox, and Lunar.

Specs:

Dimensions/Weight:

• Pin
  Weight: 34.2 g
  Height: 47.50 mm
  Length: 44.50 mm
  Width: 14.96 mm
• Battery Booster
  Weight: 20.5 g
  Height: 47.16 mm
  Length: 45.20 mm
  Width: 8.25 mm

Optical Sensors:

• Photo Resolution: 13MP, 4208×3120 pixels
• Video Resolution: TBD
• Optical Specs: Ultra Wide Camera 120° FOV, f/2.4 aperture, 5 Element lens with single glass element
• Focal Distance: 40cm~Infinite

Other Sensors:

• Light: Ambient light sensor
• Motion: Accelerometer and gyroscope
• Position: Magnetometer + GPS
• 3D Depth Sensor:
  Indirect Time of Flight Camera
  125°FOV, f/1.4 aperture, 4 Element Lens
  640×480 pixels VGA resolution
  

Laser Ink Display:

• Technology: Laser beam scanning projection system
• Laser Source: Custom-Color Single-Diode Laser
• Laser Safety Classification: Class 2 per IEC60825-1:2014
• Resolution: 720p Resolution
• Operating Distance: 20 cm to 40 cm
• Field of View: 18.2° wide, 13.3° tall, 22.4° diagonal (7 cm x 9.6 cm at 30 cm distance)

Compute:

• Processor: Octa-core Qualcomm® Snapdragon™
• Speed: 2.1 GHz (Accelerated on-device AI for enhanced performance)
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Storage: 32GB eMMC

Connectivity:

• Cellular:
  Dual Antenna MIMO
  FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 20, 26, 66, 71)
  TDD‑LTE (Bands 38, 41)
  UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz) eSim
• Wi-Fi:
  Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) with 2.4GHz + 5GHz
• Bluetooth:
  Bluetooth 5.1
  Codecs: SBC, AAC, LDAC, aptX™ HD
  Supports common Bluetooth headsets and speakers
• Location:
  GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou
  Wi-Fi Positioning System, Assisted GPS
• Network:
  Humane Wireless Service, Connected by T-Mobile®

Included in the box:

Is It worth buying?

At a hefty price of $699 and a monthly subscription of $24, one must consider whether Humane’s AI Pin is worth buying. Throughout 2023, the average smartphone price was $823, which is close to how much the AI pin costs-keeping in mind that users do not have to pay a monthly smartphone subscription. When comparing the AI pin features to smartphones, it is clear that it is illogical to substitute a smartphone with the AI pin since there are many things a smartphone can do that the AI pin cannot. Having no access to apps, e-mails, and recording videos (as of now), it does not make sense to leave your phone at home when you go outside. The AI pin is more of a complement to the smartphone than a substitute.

Additionally, many problems with the AI pin are yet to be addressed; for example, the images that the AI Pin captures are smudgy and blurry despite having a 13-megapixel camera, even in good lighting; the AI does not consistently give accurate information when shown objects and sometimes includes outdated information when asked questions.

The technology is fairly recent, so it is expected to have such issues. It will improve drastically and may completely replace smartphones in the future; however, at this point in time, you should not replace your smartphone with this device. I recommend the AI Pin to enthusiasts and people with too much money to spend, but for the average user, their phone can do almost everything the AI Pin can do. In short, you should pre-order it only if you can deal with its issues at launch; otherwise, you can wait until the tech improves.

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