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Humane warns AI Pin owners to “immediately” stop using its charging case

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/5/24172377/humane-ai-pin-battery-case-issue-warning

The AI Pin charging case has a battery issue.

Humane warns AI Pin owners to “immediately” stop using its charging case

Humane warns AI Pin owners to stop using charging case due to potential fire safety risk from certain battery cells.
Issue isolated to specific battery cells in Charge Case Accessory, not related to hardware design.
Ai Pin, Battery Booster(s), and Charge Pad not affected, as disqualified vendor does not supply components for those products.

18 comments

SpaceNoodle

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Were both users affected?

Imgonnatrythis

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I heard it was 50% of users! And boy is he mad about it.

Death_Equity

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Good thing he stopped using it a few weeks ago.

echodot

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They have hundreds of users. All of them are youtube reviewers who got one for free, and used It for the grand total of 2 days, but still.

Hugh_Jeggs

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As recompense, the company is offering two free months of its subscription service

Didn't realise it was a subscription service too. How dim would you have to be to pay 700 dollars for a device on the understanding that it won't work unless you keep paying 24 more dollars every single month?

People that buy subscriptions like this are a bigger problem than the companies that offer them

Alphane_Moon

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Their subscription service costs $24 a month? This is madness.

I am guessing this because the processing is done in the cloud? But then why the $700 price for the "AI Pin" device; what exactly does it do justify a $700 cost if processing is done in the cloud?

SturgiesYrFase

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what exactly does it do justify a $700 cost if processing is done in the cloud?

Nothing. Literally just using your phone is faster and easier.

Alphane_Moon

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CPU: Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon (Snapdragon 720G to be exact, they don't list it on their page though)
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 32GB eMMC

They have a bunch of other HW too (LTE modem, camera, voice etc.), but this does look like one of those "legal" silicon valley type scams.

SturgiesYrFase

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Sure it's got half decent specs, but all the "magic"(read as almost semi-functional) stuff happens server side.

Alphane_Moon

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$700 dollars worth half decent?

Yeah, it did look like everything happens server-side. Still seems like a borderline scam.

SturgiesYrFase

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I'd say it's so far past the border ICE is hunting it down. And no, like $200 half decent.

vvv

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it could explicitly be a reasonable deterrent. if you double your price, but lose half your customers, you've made the same amount of money for half the work.

hondacivic

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I don't like calling people "sheeple" but there's nothing else that would fit for those who bought this.

ringwraithfish

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The game console industry proved this was a viable business plan a couple of decades ago.

Snapz

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"While we know this may cause an inconvenience to you, customer safety is our priority at Humane. "

If this were true, you wouldn't beta test on your paying customers in public. You test privately, catch and address problems prior to launch. Frauds.

TheRealKuni

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That’s not how taking advantage of a hype boom works. You HAVE to get your terrible, half-baked product out while the hype is here.

recursive_recursion

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turns out their reputation isn't the only thing blowing up

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

There are issues with a third-party battery cell that “may pose a fire safety risk,” the company wrote in an email to customers (including The Verge’s David Pierce, who reviewed it when it came out).

Humane says it has “disqualified” that vendor and is moving to find another supplier.

It also specified that the AI Pin itself, the magnetic Battery Booster, and its charging pad are “not affected.” As recompense, the company is offering two free months of its subscription service, which is required for most of its functionality.

The company didn’t say if it will offer a replacement charging case, only that it “will share additional information” after investigating the issue.

The company seemingly hasn’t communicated the battery issue otherwise, either on its website or its X account.

Humane did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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