These are products that we will probably never see in Italy, but for once we can be happy instead of sorry. Because, judging by what we read (and see) on the Internet, Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 are two terrible products.
Presented at the beginning of the year as “the devices that will replace smartphones”, the next-big-thing in the world of technology, they are both two wearable personal assistants equipped with artificial intelligence. However, they do not work as promised, as they should and as one would expect given what they cost.
reddit: Rabbit R1’s embarrassing lie to MKBHD
Humane AI Pin “doesn’t work half the time”
Four months later, with the first deliveries to the first customers, the time came for a reality check that concerned first of all Humane’s AI Pin, a very expensive pin (700 dollars, plus a mandatory subscription of 24 dollars a month) which should respond to voice commands, see the world around you and talk about it, allow you to make phone calls and much more. Except that “half the time it doesn’t work” and “even when it does work it’s exasperatingly slow”, like colleagues from The Verge wrote in the reviewgiving it a solid 4 out of 10.
YouTuber MKBHD, who had already inflicted a probably fatal blow to Fisker, did even worse: in his video, which collected almost 7 million views in a couple of weeks, he spoke of the “worst product I’ve tried in my career” and openly advised against purchasing it. Simply because AI Pin is not yet ready to do what it was promised it would do.
Strong, very strong doubts about both devices have been raised by many other specialized sites and other YouTubers, including the Canadian Dave2D, who has dealt with both the AI Pin and the R1 twice, going so far as to define them as “al limit of the scam” and reiterating that even if they worked they would not do anything more than what a smartphone already does. And that at most “they could be an app”.
A hardware problem, rather than a software one
But what are the main defects of the two devices, found in the reviews that can be read and seen online? Besides the fact that they don’t work as they should, of course. There are problems at the software level, in the sense that the AI with which they are equipped does not give satisfactory answers, they lie openly and embarrassingly and above all they are not able to do what was promised and shown in the promotional videos, simply because they do not have access to some user data and have no connection with the smartphone in which this data is stored.
But more than anything there seem to be problems at the hardware level, in how they are made: the R1 has a battery that lasts 60-90 minutes and then turns off, an awkward interface that is sometimes touch-sensitive and sometimes not and a plasticky construction and a little cheap; the AI Pin often overheats (and shuts down to protect itself) and is equipped with a projector that is virtually unreadable on the outside. All this despite the fact that, we reiterate, they cost 200 and 700 dollars respectively.
youtube: Dave2D sul Rabbit R1
Why so much hurry?
The feeling is that both devices were put on sale too hastily, after a convincing advertising campaign capable of attracting a lot of attention and consensus. And so the question arises spontaneously: why? Why not wait another 2-3 months and maybe refine them better, both in terms of software and hardware?
There is no official answer, but there are some hypotheses that can be made, which Dave2D made in his videos and which we would like to share: the rush is linked to the fear of what Apple and Google could do. Let’s explain: there is already the (strong) feeling that smartphones can easily do what AI Pin and R1 do and that the only thing that distinguishes them from a phone is the integration of an AI inside them. AI which, however, does not have access to some fundamental user data to be able to actually help. In order to truly be a personal assistant: he cannot book a holiday, buy a book on Amazon or buy a pair of shoes online (as was shown in some promotional videos), simply because he does not have access to credit card data. Which instead are on the smartphone and to which both Apple and Google have access.
And what will happen in the space of less than a month, when during the I/O and WWDC events, first Google and then Apple will perhaps announce their new AI or even the integration of their existing AI within Android and iOS? That these products will become useless, because all the things they (theoretically) do can be done better, even by voice, through the smartphone that people have in their hands every day. Which continues to confirm itself as the most useful and effective object to allow communication between us and the Internet.