Here's what reviewers are saying about the Humane Pin

With long awaited Humanity ai pin They finally hit the streets on Thursday, those who have been holding their hands until their knuckles turn white in anticipation since Debuted last November You may want to wait a bit before dropping $699 (plus a $24-per-month subscription) on this tiny wearable chatbot. Reviews have made their way out, and so far, none of those who have gotten one have been thrilled about the wearable AI. The best anyone can say now is that it's a unique novelty, but those who have used it say it's slow, devoid of features, and sometimes it doesn't even work.

It's certainly an expensive device, even for something the Humanist describes as “your second brain.” The wearable pin with a built-in microphone and camera costs the same as a mid-range phone, but you'll also have to spend $24 a month for unlimited talk, texts, and data. That's limited to T-Mobile, though Humane promises more overseas telecom connections with SK Telecom and SoftBank. The device itself is powered by its own operating system, called Cosmos. Humane pledged that some of the AI ​​runs on the device while more processing is done in the cloud. However, unlike a smartphone, it is a hands-off experience. You can tap and hold a button to talk to it, hence all the comparisons to Star Trek communicators.

The pin is supposed to do what you ask without you having to scroll through or manage your apps. He also has vision abilities and should be able to understand his environment when you ask him to (emphasis mine). He should). Humane claims the Pin should be able to make calls, send texts, take photos, and even play music with a Tidal subscription. It also has a small projector that should be able to project some 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 problem is that you may not even get a response when you try to activate it. David Pearce in the edge He claimed to remain optimistic about wearable AI technology, but said no one should go out and buy a Humane pin in its current state. It has been found to be slow to respond and often mislead, yet it still lacks features that might seem essential for a device like an AI Pin, such as email. The device will refuse to answer questions such as “Is this bag of chips right for me?” Even with her vision technology installed.

It's also incredibly buggy and seems unfinished. Pierce said the pin would not complete a simple request to play one Beyoncé song. Instead, he went into a diatribe explaining Humane's backend instructions to the AI ​​when a user requests music. When you want to ask it a simple question about the weather, it can take approximately 10 seconds for the pin to give you an answer. As much as we all love to make fun of Siri And other digital assistants, at least this software will come up with the answer in just a few heartbeats. It takes a long time to send a simple text message to a friend.

“You can naturally capture a moment, and it can remember something for you, or answer questions… The more Ai Pin tells you about you, the more helpful it will be,” Bethany Borgiorno, Humane co-founder and former Apple designer, wrote in a statement. more”. And it will be yours. The company recently went through a round of layoffs, leaving some concerned that the device wouldn't get everything it promised at launch.

Knowing that reviewers would point out the dearth of features, Humane claimed to have a long roadmap with plans to expand the Pin's capabilities. First on the list is “vision,” which is supposed to allow the AI ​​to identify objects and locations, though reviewers note that the pin's current vision ability is spotty at best. She misidentified Ride's Wall Street IPO tag as “Lyft.”

Julian Chocatto from Wired He also became more concerned when he discovered that the AI ​​had lied to him about California's ban on high fructose corn syrup. She also misidentified a temple in Thailand as a different temple in Cambodia. As many journalists and researchers have noted many times, Artificial intelligence liesAnd she does it very confidently.

Reviewers said the device feels sturdy, and is very “natural” to use, according to Chris Velazco at Washington Post– Even like placing your palm in front of the device to see if the projector is working or not. However, using gestures to control the display is difficult, and messages are impossible to see in sunlight.

Despite how well built the device is, many reviewers noted that the way the battery extender pack is positioned – attached to the underside of a pin under your shirt to hold it in place – means it can start to get hot very quickly. The pin has a built-in battery, but the extender should keep it powered for longer. Heat built up by the battery is especially a problem if it's next to or on your skin. The pin tends to overheat, forcing it to shut down until it cools, Valazco said.

There are some other features 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, though so did Scott Stein CNET He wrote that the pin would sometimes get stuck in a different language after it translated some of its speech.

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

Want more Gizmodo consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to Best phones Best laptops, The best TVsAnd Best headphones. If you want to learn about the next big thing, check out our guide to Everything we know about the iPhone 16.