Wearable AI assistant seems to be a flop
The performance of wearable AI assistants are rather disappointing so far. However, it might be just a temporary issue
Wearable devices represent one of the latest trends in digital technology. Countless gizmos and gadgets get invented every day, and a lot of them have the potential to help us live better and healthier lives.
Wearable devices have been helping people for years now, but the addition of AI to these wearables is giving them capabilities beyond anything seen before.
A couple of startups, Humane and Rabbit, had worked on AI-based “post-smartphone” wearable device that allows people to carry a digital personal assistant everywhere. Product placement was top-notch, as seen during the 2023 Paris fashion week. However, once on the market, the gadget haven’t met the expectations. Let’s recap what happened.
What is a wearable AI assistant
AI Pin and Rabbit are wireless devices, developed by startups. Think of them as small, configurable, wearable AI assistant. Both shaped like a rounded square, they resembled a small calculator or a clothes tag.
AI Pin, a $ 700 device funded by Open AI Sam Altman and Microsoft wants to free you from your phone. Rabbit R1, at 199 isn’t just a chatbot – it’s a device for, potentially, doing almost anything.
They both represents innovative wearable devices that redefines the interaction with AI, offering a discreet yet powerful way to stay connected and in control.
Those intelligent clothing-based wearables use a range of sensors that enable natural and intuitive compute interactions and is designed to weave seamlessly into users’ day-to-day lives.
Comprising the visible display, a battery booster for inside the clothing and a “beacon” for communicating messages, the devices can apparently chat with the user/wearer to help find information, including searching through your email. And it’s highlighted that the device could even serve as an interpreter, translating languages.
To interact with the AI Pin designed by Humane, for instance, you can tilt and roll your hand and then also use a variety of gestures on the device. For example, you can double-tap it to answer or end a call, or to start or stop music.
Designed for privacy
Ai Pin is designed in “privacy first” mode, with privacy and personal space in mind. Activating only on command, with no wake words, to ensure what’s private stays private. Its Trust Light clearly signals when it’s capturing, in order to foster a trusting environment.
Specifications
Fit for living: with simple screen-free design, the wearable are small in size, light in weight, and tailor-made for hand gestures.
Tech features: the optical specs include an ultra Wide Camera lens with single glass element. The focal distance is 40cm and beyond Inside the clothing, the battery booster measures 47.16 mm by 45.2mm and weighs 20.5g.
Serious clasp: designed for apparel ranging from shirts to jackets, and everything in between, the wearables have magnet arrays securely attach with just one latch.
Charge ahead: batteries are rechargeable lithium-ion polymer ones, that give users extra hours of battery life through our perpetual power system.
Criticized for flaws
In spite of the hype, Humane AI Pin seems to have failed to challenge iPhone’s dominance due to severe flaws. It had big promise, but reviews of the product were overwhelmingly negative. The device started shipping to customers in April 2024 and problems with the device included extremely poor battery life, frequent overheating problems, and many software shortcomings.
Hard times for Humane?
Now, Bloomberg reports that Humane is looking to sell the company.According to “people familiar with the matter,” Humane is “seeking a buyer for its business” and in talks with a financial advisor to assist in a potential sale. It’s noted that the process is still very early, but that Humane is looking for a sale between $750 million and $1 billion.
Humane has not confirmed that it intends to sell the company as of yet. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the AI gadget space, the Rabbit R1 is under increasing scrutiny as new information about the company’s founder and past business dealings are coming to light.
Who will buy Humane?
The current self-assessment, close to one billion, will be an obstacle twice over, if the aim is for the company to survive: because such a high figure definitely narrows the field of potential buyers and because more or less all these potential buyers are already active in the field of AI and they are already doing something of their own, with AI.
The various Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft (the economic arm of OpenAI) certainly have the capacity to spend 1 billion dollars for Humane, but it is difficult to imagine why they want to do so, given that they already have at home what it takes to be competitive in the artificial intelligence sector.
This is probably also the reason why the Humane and Rabbit products arrived in stores before they were really finished and ready: they tried to beat Apple and Google above all, which they are already integrating AI into the operating systems of their phones, so that they do what AI Pin and R1 were theoretically supposed to do. They tried to burn the competition, but they got burned in the attempt.
However: AI is here to stay and we are pretty convinced that AI wearables are just some additional design away!
sources: Bloomberg I Domus
cover image: Humane
author: Barbara Marcotulli
Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition has been committed since its very first editions to make innovation accessible and usable to all, with the aim of not leaving anyone behind. Its blog is always updated and full of opportunities and inspiration for makers, makers, startups, SMEs and all the curious ones who wish to enrich their knowledge and expand their business, in Italy and abroad.
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