- The Humane AI Pin had to be chilled with ice packs before product demos, per The New York Times.
- Company executives said the wearable's laser-projected display would cause it to overheat.
AI startup Humane had a hot product on their hands — quite literally.
Humane staff often had to chill the device with ice packs before presenting it to potential investors and partners, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with product demonstrations.
This was because the AI Pin's energy-hungry laser-projected display made the wearable overheat, per The Times.
According to The Times, Humane's founders brushed aside employee concerns about the pin's heating issues and claimed that software updates could fix them.
"Over the course of product development, all mobile devices, like AI Pin, must confront power demand and thermal management challenges, which are closely related and best managed through software optimization," a spokesperson for Humane said in a statement to BI.
The spokesperson told BI that "external cooling measures are common early in a product development cycle" and that an upcoming software update "includes significant improvement on thermal and battery life issues customers have reported in the past several weeks."
Humane was cofounded by two former Apple employees — Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno — in 2019. Chaudhri spent over 21 years working for the iPhone maker, while Bongiorno clocked eight years at the same company.
"We found that our desire and passion for computing and technology didn't just end at the work we did at Apple," Chaudhri told BI's Megan Hernbroth in March 2020.
Humane launched its first product, the AI Pin, in November. The device was widely anticipated before its debut and was mentioned in Time magazine's list of best inventions in October.
Humane pitched the pin as a stand-alone device that could act as your AI personal assistant. In addition to taking calls and answering texts through voice commands, users could interact with the device via its laser-projected display.
This is the Humane Ai Pin https://t.co/ytUSGF3y55 pic.twitter.com/Zrcoaf49u7
— Humane (@Humane) November 9, 2023
But middling reviews and a growing consensus that the device can't replace your smartphone appear to have dented the company's once-lofty ambitions.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that Humane is looking for a buyer and is seeking a price of between $750 million to $1 billion.
Humane's cofounders responded to the criticisms surrounding the AI Pin's performance in April, saying it was only the "beginning of the story."
"We have an ambitious road map with software refinements, new features, additional partnerships, and our SDK," Chaudhri and Bongiorno said in a statement to BI. "All of this will enable your AI Pin to become smarter and more powerful over time."
Correction: June 8, 2024 — A previous version of this story misattributed the source of a statement. Three people familiar with the product demonstration told The New York Times about Humane AI's pin overheating, not Humane company executives.