5 ms·
Humane's daily returns are outpacing sales
- duxup 2y agoThe name of the company makes the title really wonky. I do not quite understand how these sort one off tech lifestyle products take off like they do. That pin just never looked like it would do what it promised.
- paxys 2y agoThe fact that they are selling a negative number of units shows that they aren't, in fact, taking off.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoIt's funny thinking about how the founders raised 250 million. It's a reminder, when you see founders of unicorns, often they arent really an "entrepreneur" that started from nothing. They just had the right resume to attract large volumes of capital. People should view founders as more similar to hedge fund managers, who get a cut of the money they manage. Its largely the same, raise 30m because you went to Harvard, you are bound to cash out a few million, regardless of your ability to leverage that money.
- azinman2 2y agoExcept the founders were really critical to the development of the iPhone. That's a pretty great signal. You can't really compare it to having gone to Harvard.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- duxup 2y agoI always wonder where some of these get their money and what the demo for the thing that doesn't work, was. If there was a demo at all. I remember stories of Theranos raising funds and a number of potential investors supposedly walked when they felt uncomfortable with not being able to see any of what was claimed ... actually happening. Good choice.
- sofixa 2y agoReminder that Juicero (which never made sense) and Theranos (which did make sense, but was physically impossible, which should have been obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge on the matter) also raised millions.
- yieldcrv 2y agoNote: this is about people returning the product in greater quantities than people buying the product My initial thought was about stock price appreciation diverging from fundamentals. Private company anyway.
- josefritzishere 2y agoSo many "AI" products have already fallen flat or crashed and burned that I can see a day coming when the word dissapears from marketing, that it becomes a net negative as a buzzword.
- jprete 2y agoI think that day is already here. But it's hard for an industry to suddenly reverse course on billions of dollars in business funding even if the industry collectively wanted to do it.
- hinkley 2y agoAs it ever does. We cherry pick a couple of ideas every AI hype cycle and distance them from AI and call them something else. Once upon a time Dynamic Programming was considered to be in the AI domain. We’ve narrowed the scope of AI many times since, but there are still algorithms we can tease out and make boring. People have tried to extract tensors once now (wisdom of crowds era), and they have hardware support now so
- sofixa 2y agoIt already has a negative connotation for potential buyers, so we're not far away: https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2024/07/30/using-the-term-artificial-intelligence-in-product-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/ https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2024/07/30/using-the-term...
- wvenable 2y agoIt's already here: "Using the term 'artificial intelligence' in product descriptions reduces purchase intentions" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240730134844.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240730134844.h...
- mataug 2y agoI’m not surprised. The attitude of build a prototype and ship it fast, we can fix problems with software updates only works if the hardware and the UX are really compelling. IMHO humane pin was dead on arrival, using a pin to interact with an AI sounds great on paper until we realize it’s awkward and slow in real life use
- jstummbillig 2y agoMost new products and companies are dead on arrival. That is simply the statistically correct assumption and the weirder it looks, the more reasonable it feels to make that assumption.
- iamleppert 2y agoI think people are being way too hard on the AI PIN. It makes a great stocking stuffer for Christmas! Kind of like those wonky Sharper Image devices. They can change their marketing to gadget enthusiasts and as a gift for that weird uncle who has everything, and I think it could be a hit. Integrate with an LLM like OpenAI's digital Chatline you could license the guts as the brains to a talking parrot or a new kind of Big Mouth Talking Bass fish.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoA $699 stocking stuffed is gonna have a very, very small market though.
- paxys 2y agoDon't forget the $24/mo subscription that is required to keep it from being a paperweight.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoAugh, you're right. So $699 initially, and then another $288/yr until the end of time :P
- 2y ago
- JohnMakin 2y agoIt's a shame stuff like this happens, because wearable tech is likely the future, but repeated failures like this of wearable tech will make investors a little wary of other similar products. I had never heard of this at all, after learning about it I can't think of a single thing I'd use it for, and I am not a luddite with new gadgets - I love stuff that tries to do something never done before.
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoCell phones and smartwatches can already fill this niche. This is an expensive, single-function dongle. It was obsolete before it ever hit the market.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThe "sell" here though was to untether people from their phones, which is a worthy goal and definitely a market demand, this one just didn't fill that.
- SllX 2y agoIt’s really not a good sales message. People love their phones. Replacing it with something that’s kinda like a phone but more finicky because it’s trying to not be a phone is pointless, and for those who do want to untether from their phones for part of the day but still have some functional coverage from another device, an Apple Watch can fulfill that just fine. Personally I think the bodycam form factor is interesting for a new tertiary device category, but if there is a marketable product there, it’s not a replacement for your phone.
- lancesells 2y agoI think the bodycam will never be it on it's own. Watch - Almost everyone can wear this daily, in almost any environment. Glasses - Almost everyone can wear this daily, in almost any environment. Bodycam - Depends on what you're wearing and where. Work at a hospital? Probably not. A night out on a date? Probably not. At the beach? No. Tank top? No. Rainy day with layers? Not easy. It's too dependent on something that varies considerably.
- Arnt 2y ago"One alpha tester contacted customer support to describe the product [...] They launched the AI Pin anyway." Reminds me of the PowerPoint/NASA paper, many many years ago. At some point you get external feedback, whether from gravity or real customers. The direction of gravity will not be changed, real customers aren't much more malleable. Sigh.
- croes 2y ago>Once a Humane Pin is returned, the company has no way to refurbish it, sources with knowledge of the return process confirmed. The Pin becomes e-waste, and Humane doesn’t have the opportunity to reclaim the revenue by selling it again. The core issue is that there is a T-Mobile limitation that makes it impossible (for now) for Humane to reassign a Pin to a new user once it’s been assigned to someone. Adding insult to injury. How could anyone think that's good product design?
- tqi 2y agoThat's a almost certainly a business / vendor contract limitation not a design choice
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- paxys 2y agoEmployee – "Hey boss, slight problem. We are soldering in the SIM chip and T-Mobile says that they cannot be remotely reassigned to a new number. So these devices will be impossible to refurbish." CEO with a Steve Jobs complex – "This device is going to be revolutionary and no one in their right mind will return it, so we don't need to worry." Good thing that they have ~90,000 unsold units, so refurbishing isn't a problem.
- 2y ago
- Ekaros 2y agoSomehow this seems obvious product of something that should have been first verified as an app... And if that is popular make a stand alone product... Jumping to stand alone product seems just insane... If I were less moral I might try to get funding for something like this myself...
- wvenable 2y agoBut you can't own the ecosystem that way. So many user-hostile product decisions are made in order to own the user and potentially extract recurring revenue. Whether it's this or printer ink subscriptions. Building products that user's want is secondary to owning the market.
- paxys 2y agoThe company backed itself into a corner. Since day 1 they sold a grand vision of a product that would "free you" from your smartphone. When it was obvious that it would only work as something you tethered to your phone, their collective ego was too big to say "we were wrong, here's an accessory instead".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]