Those Star Trek-Style Humane AI Pins Will Stop Working by End of the Month

If you’re among the smallish group of people who own a Humane AI pin, start saying your goodbyes. The wearable device, which CNET writer Scott Stein compared to “an AI-powered Star Trek communicator pinned to your shirt,” is on its way out.

Humane announced Tuesday that it would stop selling the pins after the company revealed it will be acquired by HP. And don’t think you’ll have a lot of time to wind down, either — this is a pretty accelerated timeline.

Read more: Humane AI Hands-On: My Life So Far With a Wearable AI Pin

“Your Ai Pin will continue to function normally until 12 pm PST on February 28, 2025,” Humane said in the statement. “After this date, it will no longer connect to Humane’s servers, and .Center access will be fully retired.”

The AI Pin features will no longer include calling, messaging, AI queries and responses, and cloud access, and on Feb. 28, all remaining consumer data will be deleted, the company said.

“We strongly encourage you to sync your Ai Pin over Wi-Fi and download any stored pictures, videos, and notes from .Center before February 28, 2025,” the statement said. “If you do not do this, your data will be lost upon deletion on February 28, 2025 at 12pm PST.”

A representative for Humane did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

First-hand experience

CNET’s Scott Stein reviewed the device in April 2024, noting that the $699 pin seemed like science fiction but was a chore to use.

“The ideas inside Humane’s vision were interesting, but the execution — and its total lack of connection with any phone — made it feel absurd,” Stein said on Tuesday. “Also it was hard to control, didn’t work well and overheated extremely quickly.”

Stein enjoyed the language translation feature and said its camera quality was “fine but not great.” The device did not respond to voice activation and instead must be constantly tapped to be put into service. 

The pin could read things out loud, try to identify cars, plants and locations, or describe a room, Stein said in his review. But not without issues. When he asked it to identify a can of Spindrift flavored sparkling water, it told him instead about a 2022 Apple TV Plus movie, possibly mishearing his asking the device to “look” for the movie’s title, “Luck.”