I have between five and eight phones sitting at my desk at any given time (and by “desk” I mean any combination of tables and countertops around the house), so when I saw reviews for the Humane AI Pin starting to pour in last week, I did what any logical person would do: grab the nearest phone and try to turn it into my own AI wearable.
Humane wants you to believe that its AI Pin represents cutting-edge consumer tech, but reviews and a look inside the Pin tell you that this isn’t the case: It uses a four-year-old Snapdragon processor and appears to be running a custom version of Android 12.
“This is a mid-range Android phone!” I announced at our next team meeting, brandishing my mid-range Android phone for effect. “All you have to do is download Gemini and stick it on your shirt!” Easy. Easy. Give me 10 minutes and I’ll have a more powerful AI gadget in no time, I said.
Hardware is hard.
Ideally, I wanted an outward-facing camera and a proper voice assistant for hands-free use. An iPhone in a shirt pocket was an interesting solution, but it wasn’t feasible because a) my shirts don’t have pockets, and b) Siri isn’t all that smart. So my first prototype was a Motorola Razr Plus clipped to the neckline of my shirt. Naturally, it didn’t work, but for reasons I didn’t expect.
First, on a foldable phone, you can’t download Gemini from the Play Store, which was a first for me. But even after sideloading it and setting it as the default assistant, I hit another wall: it’s very difficult to use a voice assistant through the cover screen of a foldable phone. On the Razr, you have to do something before opening the phone, other than grab its attention with “Hey Google.”
What we do for content. Photo: Alison Johnson/The Verge
Running Gemini on Chrome on the cover screen actually got me close to what I was looking for, but trying to tap an on-screen button to launch the Assistant didn’t work, and neither did using Google Lens out of the corner of my eye. Gemini also misread the word “recycle” on a toothpaste tube as “vesicle,” before confidently telling me that this is an old word for glasses, which it isn’t.
Prototype 2 was the same Razr flip phone running ChatGPT in conversation mode on the cover screen, which meant the app was always running and always listening, which made it impractical, but I tried it anyway and found it a strange experience to converse with an invisible AI chatbot.
I want an AI that can do things for me, not just think about ingredients for stir-fry.
ChatGPT is good at conversation, but I quickly ran out of things to talk about once I exhausted the usual chatbot topics like dinner recipes and plant care tips. I’d like an AI that can do things for me, not just brainstorm ingredients for a stir fry.
I ditched the foldable concept and got a Pixel 8 and a Pixel Watch 2 instead. I set Gemini as the default assistant on my phone, figuring that would somehow apply to the watch. Wrong. But I had one more card up my sleeve: good old fashioned wireless earbuds. Live the tech-forward life, baby.
Honestly, earbuds might be the AI wearables of the future. Photo: Chris Welch / The Verge
But guess what? It worked. I had to keep Gemini open on my phone, because Google doesn’t fully support Gemini Assistant on headphones. But I took a picture of the Blue Apron recipe I was making for dinner, told Gemini to memorize it, and put my phone on the counter. As I moved around the kitchen, I asked Gemini questions that would normally require me to peer at the recipe to answer, like, “How long do I roast the veggies?” and “How do I prepare the fish?” Gemini got it right every time.
Even more impressive, I was able to ask the app unrelated questions. The app helped me recreate a seasoning mix I didn’t have on hand using ingredients I already had in my pantry. I asked why a recipe called for making the sauce in two batches, and it gave me a plausible answer. And it also did something the Humane Pin can’t do yet: set a timer.
It wasn’t perfect. For one, the Google Home puck I had sitting on the counter kept trying to get in the way, so I had to unplug it. Also, the Gemini told me it couldn’t play albums from Spotify, something Google Home speakers have been doing for nearly a decade. At least the clock helped in that regard.
What started out as a silly stunt has convinced me of two things: first, I truly believe we will see more and more things accomplished with AI in the future, and second, the future of AI gadgets is just phones. Phones!
I love gadgets, but guys, I lived through a time when camera companies were trying to convince us that we all needed to carry a compact camera and a cell phone everywhere we went. Cell phones won. Cell phones already have powerful processors, good heat dissipation, and advanced wireless connectivity. An AI gadget that works independently of the cell phone would have to make sense of all that, and
I think there’s one thing that looks less goofy than a laser pin on your chest: earbuds. People are happy to wear earbuds all day now. For wearables, goofiness is definitely important. It’s hard to imagine a standalone gadget being able to compete with a humble phone and earbuds, or even something like Meta Ray Bans. Maybe there’s room in our lives and wallets for dedicated AI hardware. As a gadget lover, I’m all for it. But I think it’s likely that all the ingredients needed to make great AI hardware are right in front of us.
