Humane Just Gave Everyone a Huge Incentive To Buy an AI Pin
This free value definitely makes the $699 starting price easier to swallow.
Humane’s wearable Ai Pin is betting big on AI as the cure for phone addiction, returning us to being present in our lives instead of experiencing reality through a display in our hands. It’s a cool idea created by many ex-Apple vets, but the $699 price and additional $24 per month subscription required to ‘escape’ your phone is a considerable barrier to entry.
Good things come to those, uh, who are early adopters. Humane’s head of new media, Sam Sheffer, announced in a video that the company’s making the first three months of the device’s required subscription (a $72 value) free for everyone who purchased the Ai Pin. “It’s a token of gratitude. It’s our way of saying thanks to our early adopters.”
Additionally, Humane is also waiving shipping fees, making them free for new Ai Pin purchases. Anyone who already bought an Ai Pin, he says, “we’ll take care of you.” Humane new media member, Collin Cornwell, confirmed on X, that means “refunds/your money back.”
Sheffer says the Humane subscription “includes over-the-air software updates, meaning your Ai Pin gets better over time.” He added that they’ll be sharing details on those releases “soon.”
The offer is for a limited time. If you purchase an Ai Pin by March 31, you’ll qualify for the free three months of the Humane subscription.
Humane Ai Pin Shipping Times
In December, Humane said it would start shipping Ai Pins in March. Sheffer provided a little more detail on shipping times, saying the first Ai Pins would “start leaving the factory at the end of March” and “priority access orders will begin delivering in mid-April.” He says Humane will be sending customers “onboarding emails before Pins go out.”
AI Gadget Competition
Since the Ai Pin’s official debut last November, the AI gadget battle has heated up. At CES 2024, new startup Rabbit catapulted itself to the front with its R1 pocket companion. I said it was basically a real-life Pokédex and it’s not hard to see why. Similar to the fictional Pokémon identifying handheld, the R1 uses its camera to “see” and then serve answers to questions that you ask it. For example, here’s Rabbit founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu, asking his R1 to help fix his Nest thermostat. Even Nest inventor Tony Fadell was impressed.
Lyu’s been tweeting many examples of how the R1 works. Here’s a video of it identifying a pack of Japanese KitKats and translating the Japanese text. It’s not just about identifying things its camera sees, the R1, through its “large action models,” can learn how to operate apps and services like Uber or Spotify so that you can simply tell it to do something for you. The future may not be apps, but AI that can operate your apps for you.
It’s impossible to tell whether or not Humane’s Ai Pin will succeed or not, but it’s great that there are people trying to do something new and different. At the very least, Humane’s made the Ai Pin a better deal with three free months of the subscription.
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