Ai Pin, a wearable device made to function as a phone (or more) without a screen, sounded great when it was first announced by US startup Humane in November. But that's not reality. A review of the device by The Verge found the pins to not work well, being slow and unreliable.

Reviewing the gadget after two weeks of testing, the publication's editor, David Pearce, said that Humane's Ai Pin is an interesting idea, but it is completely unfinished and there are too many things that are unacceptable. “It is broken,” he concluded.

He said the device, which began shipping last week, is not worth the money and would not recommend anyone spend the $699 it costs to purchase the pin and the $24 monthly subscription.

Also read: Humanitarian Ai Pin makes factual errors during launch demo

Ai Ping: What went wrong?

Ai Pin is a small, lightweight device that you can wear on your body. There is no screen, it is operated by voice and touch. The device is powered by a combination of Humane's proprietary software and OpenAI's GPT-4 technology and attaches magnetically to clothing, so there is no need to pair it with a smartphone.

With a built-in speaker, Pin uses AI to sense and respond to your environment, helping you answer questions, make calls, send texts, and more. This gadget is equipped with a small projector that can be used to project images and text into the user's hand.

Humane is touting Ai Pin as the beginning of a post-smartphone era, where people spend less time on their smartphones and more time in the real world. This device is likely designed to help users make this transition. But reviewers for The Verge had a different experience.

While Pierce was impressed with the Ai Pin's small and sturdy construction, which “looks and feels much better than your average first-generation hardware product,” he also found the unit “incredible.” I also feel that it's not as delicate as it should be. Pierce had a device attached to his chest.

“If you're standing in front of a building, beating your chest and talking to yourself, people will notice. And everything will get in the way,” he says. I got it.. “My backpack strap rubbed and my messenger bag got stuck on it. Both my son and dog accidentally turned off his AI pin while climbing on top of me. .”

Users must tap the pin, press and hold to shout a question into the air, and release. Ai Pin is said to find answers by browsing the web and obtaining knowledge from across the internet.

The main idea behind Ai Pin is to use mobile phone connectivity and AI models to answer queries and complete tasks. But Pierce said Ping couldn't do the little things that Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri did a decade ago, such as setting a 10-minute timer or setting an alarm.

“You can't add anything to the calendar or even tell us what's already there,” he elaborated. “You can create notes and lists that appear in the Humane Center web app. […] – But when I try to add something to the list later, it almost always fails for some reason. ”

This is a humanitarian love pin https://t.co/ytUSGF3y55 pic.twitter.com/Zrcoaf49u7

— Humane (@Humane) November 9, 2023

Ipin says, “All I know is time.''

According to Humane, Ai Pin aims to help people be more productive by using hands-free voice commands to make calls, send texts, and access information from the Internet. is. For Pierce, the experience was terrifying.

He reported that Pin, which uses Humane's proprietary Cosmos operating system, was poorly functional and unreliable, and could not understand commands. For example, a simple task like making a phone call requires several attempts and often yields incorrect results.

“Every time Ai Pin seemingly tries to do something, it has to process the query through Humane's servers, which is very slow at best and fails completely at worst,” Pearce said. said, pointing out how this undermines the company's goal of providing seamless service. experience.

He asked Ping to write down a library book that was “on sale next week,” but “you have to wait 10 seconds until the process repeats and throws a generic 'You can't add that' error message.” I felt dissatisfied with the situation.

Also, when Pierce tried to call someone, the device was unable to make the call 50% of the time. “When someone called me, the Ai Pin would never ring and would go straight to voicemail,” he said, adding:

“After many days of testing, the only thing you can really rely on the AI ​​pin to do is tell you the time.”

According to Pierce's review, Ai Pin disappoints in many ways. Not only will you not be able to make calls or access your phone's apps, but the battery tends to overheat within minutes of use. Humane co-founder Bethany Bongiorno says the warmth can be caused by poor reception or overuse. Pierce was notified that the pin was overheating and would need to be cooled down significantly during the test.

“Battery life is just as bad,” he complained. “At one point, the Ai Pin and booster went from fully charged to completely dead in 5 hours, left untouched in my backpack.”

The interface is “banana”

of eye pin Comes with two battery boosters, a charging case, and a tabletop charger. Pierce tested both the booster and the small internal battery in just a few hours of rigorous testing.

“The lightest day of testing, which typically consisted of a few phone calls, a few texts, and a half-dozen queries, didn't have many overheating issues, but the battery ran out long before the day was over. ” he said. He said. ”

“As long as you don't overuse the projector, the Ai pins will pass just fine,” he adds. For the visually conscious, Pin is equipped with a small projector that can project images and text onto surfaces such as the side of a building, or even your hand.

The projector is also used to access settings, unlock your device, etc. Despite Humane's promises, Pierce finds that the projector only works on his hands and not on other surfaces. He struggled to find the right hand position to project text correctly on the Ai Pin, and described his 720p resolution as “shit.”

“The projector's user interface is, how do I describe it? – Banana,” Pearce said.

He said he did a lot of “gymnastics” with his hands just to operate Ai Pin's projector. This projector only projects green light, which becomes invisible when you are in a bright place. He added, “There are so many interaction systems that it's hard to remember, especially when none of them work well.”

Ai Pin could sometimes use its camera to take a photo of a place, such as a restaurant, and then query a cooperating AI model to review that place, but it could also use other languages ​​such as Japanese or Korean. I had a hard time translating the language. Translation appears to be one of the device's key selling points, with a way to automatically identify the language you're translating into.

'Wish Upon a Star'

The Pin also doesn't provide accurate information about the weather, and although it connects to music streaming platform Tidal, it's “disconnected just like the rest of the Ai Pins,” Pearce said. Ta. The gadget also failed when asked to play Beyoncé's new country song from his album.

“Generally speaking, I would say that for every successful interaction with the Ai Pin, there are three or four failures,” Pearce said, adding that the unit “doesn't work. I don’t know if it’s okay.”

“Using the Ai pin feels like wishing on a star. You just close your eyes and hope for the best. Most of the time, nothing happens,” he says.

It's not really surprising that Ai Pin struggles to make a good impression in real-world applications.This device caused several glaring factual errors during launch demonstration on Twitter in November.

How co-founder Imran Chaudhry (Bongiorno's husband) uses Ai Pin to answer the question, “When is the next solar eclipse and where is the best place to view it?” I demonstrated what I could do.

In response, the computer said, “The next total solar eclipse will occur on April 8, 2024. The best places to see it are Exmouth, Australia, and East Timor.”

This was not true. A total solar eclipse in 2024 will only be visible in the United States, Canada and Mexico, according to the US space agency NASA. This phenomenon was also called the “Great North American Solar Eclipse.”

Humane co-founders told The Verge that Ai Pin's problems will be resolved and the device will become “smarter and more powerful over time,” as reviewed by David Pierce. They promised to make improvements, new features, and software improvements to Ai Pin's Cosmos OS.