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Returns of Humane AI Pin Outpacing Sales

MacRumors said:
Humane raised more than $200 million from investors, and had planned to sell around 100,000 pins during its first year, but poor performance seems to have sunk the device. The Verge claims that pre-launch family and friends reviewers raised concerns about the functionality of the AI Pin, but it was launched despite the feedback.
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Those "investments" in such ridiculous products are not real investments but a vehicle for money laundering.
 
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One….needed to check the date as it sure felt like the first day of April.

Two… I never ever thought I’d see a tech product that made the Zune look good. ( for those that have never heard of Zune, go look it up)

Three… What the hell were those people thinking? Coming up with a new product is not easy but there is little point in creating one that does things that existing products can do better.

Four…. Who in their right mind would ever want to wear one of those clipped on to your front. It’s as good as saying “ hey look at me I’m a gullible geek”.

Five…. What investor in their right mind would have put cash into that project? Did no one have the balls to say at prototype stage.. “ hey don’t you think this is a **** idea?”
 
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erihp said:
Fair point, but surely someone in the room asked ‘but why isn’t this an app?’ before signing millions and millions of dollars?
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I’m not defending it - to the contrary - but likely when the checks were signed, the vision of the product was either different, or not even formulated yet. It could be based on a company vision, but not yet a product vision. But, I’m just guessing.
 
Stenik said:
Those "investments" in such ridiculous products are not real investments but a vehicle for money laundering.
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Even money laundering requires some of the money you put in, to come back out. It’s more accurate to call it lottery.
 
chrono1081 said:
I will say I find it a noble idea to keep technology with you without being attached to a screen that will keep you trapped into doom scrolling...they just didn't execute it as well as it needed to be executed.
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I still don't know who downvotes these sorts of comments. Are there people opposed to the idea of not making us addicted to phones?!

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg has an alt account on here!

You are right though, it was an idea that was just too far ahead of its time.
 
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The biggest failure of this company is that it wasn’t sold in time to make the founders rich, like intended. Are they really still in talks with HP? Seriously?
 
I think it was a good idea, making the tech assistants more easily accessible while releasing some screen time pressure but it failed in two ways:
1. implementation
2. business model

Implementation was ultimately flawed and overreaching, hopefully they could do something about it but I don't see them understanding what needs to be done.

The business model is absolutely wrong. Both in how it's presented and how it's executed.
 
sunapple said:
The biggest failure of this company is that it wasn’t sold in time to make the founders rich, like intended. Are they really still in talks with HP? Seriously?
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Honestly, I think this is the heart of the matter. They aimed high to sell the company before launch, and just reached a point where they had to keep going towards launch to keep the dream of alive. Simply reached a point of no return.
 
El_Capitan said:
I think it was a good idea, making the tech assistants more easily accessible while releasing some screen time pressure but it failed in two ways:
1. implementation
2. business model

Implementation was ultimately flawed and overreaching, hopefully they could do something about it but I don't see them understanding what needs to be done.

The business model is absolutely wrong. Both in how it's presented and how it's executed.
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I think the idea of replacing the phone with a wearable is inherently flawed. I don’t belive any implementation and/or business model can change that. The assumption that people don’t like using their phone is wrong. Plus, the whole economy of smartphones revolves around us being addicted to them. Replacing it with something else for us to be addicted to, will not fix that.

Products that compete with smartphones for your attention, and reduces “doomscrolling”, already exist. It’s called books and newspapers. Reducing people’s use of tech by selling another tech product is like… reducing gun violence by selling more guns.
 
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El_Capitan said:
I think it was a good idea, making the tech assistants more easily accessible while releasing some screen time pressure but it failed in two ways:
1. implementation
2. business model

Implementation was ultimately flawed and overreaching, hopefully they could do something about it but I don't see them understanding what needs to be done.

The business model is absolutely wrong. Both in how it's presented and how it's executed.
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While there are some use cases I believe it's still very debatable if there's any real use for those assistants particularly as a stand alone product beyond a feature on an established product.
 
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Its a bit of a shame really.

Im sure the Apple Vision Pro has had a similar large proportion of returns although Apple can weather such a financial hit.

The shame is that someone has tried to do something different and innovative. There are however many many things wrong with the product and the subscription model is doomed to fail sadly.

What is very clear is that the product as it stands is not ready for primetime at all... and perhaps its premature release will have doomed it to fail because people might not be willing to entertain version 2.0 by which time Apple Intelligence and others will be firmly entrenched in portable devices that people are already well versed in carrying around with them i.e. phones.

A worthy intention but no surprise
 
stocklen said:
Its a bit of a shame really.

Im sure the Apple Vision Pro has had a similar large proportion of returns although Apple can weather such a financial hit.

The shame is that someone has tried to do something different and innovative. There are however many many things wrong with the product and the subscription model is doomed to fail sadly.

What is very clear is that the product as it stands is not ready for primetime at all... and perhaps its premature release will have doomed it to fail because people might not be willing to entertain version 2.0 by which time Apple Intelligence and others will be firmly entrenched in portable devices that people are already well versed in carrying around with them i.e. phones.

A worthy intention but no surprise
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I actually disagree. It’s not a shame that they failed, it’s good. It will not stifle innovation, it will (hopefully) incentivize investments in actual product innovation, rather than buzzwords and hyperbole. But, I’m probably too optimistic… in any case, it’s good that bad ideas fail. As I said above, Humane is based on an inherently flawed idea, not just a bad execution. A 2.0 product without the bugs would change exactly nothing.

“by which time Apple Intelligence and others will be firmly entrenched in portable devices that people are already well versed in carrying around with them”

This was ten years ago.
 
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