Time to take the pin out of what Humane’s been up to
David Pierce at The Verge got a day-early scoop on that Ai Pin from Humane:
The Pin itself is a square device that magnetically clips to your clothes or other surfaces. The clip is more than just a magnet, though; it’s also a battery pack, which means you can swap in new batteries throughout the day to keep the Pin running. We don’t know how long a single battery lasts, but the device ships with two “battery boosters.” It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and uses a camera, depth, and motion sensors to track and record its surroundings. It has a built-in speaker, which Humane calls a “personic speaker,” and can connect to Bluetooth headphones.
And what it does:
The Pin’s operating system is called Cosmos, and rather than operate as a collection of apps, Humane seems to be imagining a more seamless system that can call up various AIs and other tools as you need them. It sounds a bit like ChatGPT’s plugins system, through which you can attach new features or data to your chatbot experience — which tracks with reports that the Pin would be powered by GPT-4.
So what’s this newfangled thing going to cost?
The documents show that Humane wants the Pin to be considered a fully standalone device, rather than an accessory to your smartphone. $699 gets you the Pin, a charger, and those two battery boosters. But the real story is that it costs $24 per month for a Humane Subscription, which includes a phone number and cell data on Humane’s own branded wireless service that runs on T-Mobile’s network, cloud storage for photos and videos, and the ability to make unlimited queries of AI models, although we’re not sure which ones specifically.
I’m ready to be blown away at what this thing can do and have it take the world by storm. But as of right now, I’m having a hard time imagining wanting to wear this everywhere — along with carrying a phone, a watch, and AirPods with me everywhere. Unless it can replace anything of those things, it’s going to be a tough sell for me to add it into my daily carry.
I will say that $24/month is a good deal for a cellular plan, data, storage, and AI queries.