AI Off the Screen: Humane AI Pin vs. Pocketable Rabbit R1

Let’s be real, smartphones are doing everything already, yet there’s this irresistible itch for something sleeker, smarter, more invisible. Enter the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 AI-powered devices that promise to shrink the weight of our phones, literally, or at least reposition them. Think wearables and pocket companions designed to let AI run errands for you without endless scrolling.

Design & Usability

Humane AI Pin: Worn like a brooch on your chest, this screen-less device relies on voice commands, gesture recognition, and a laser “Ink” projector to beam info onto your palm. It looks sleek, minimal, and futuristic, if it actually worked like Jony Ive’s dreams.

Rabbit R1: Picture a small, orange, pocket-size box with a 2.88-inch touchscreen, retro scroll wheel, push-to-talk button, and rotating camera co-designed with Teenage Engineering to feel friendly and tactile.

Core AI Features

The AI Pin leans heavily on ambient awareness gesture control, voice, and smart projection, but falls flat in execution. Features were missing at launch or unreliable.

The Rabbit R1 leans on its “Large Action Model,” an AI engine that actually tries to do things like ordering food, transcribing spreadsheets, hailing Ubers, controlling Spotify, or typing from its mini-keyboard.

Strengths of the Humane AI Pin

There’s a certain cinematic charm to pin-wearable tech, and its minimal, elegant design was dreamt up by ex-Apple engineers. David Chayton, an electrical engineer, praised its internal craftsmanship and MEMS laser projector. 
But the charm was mostly theoretical; regardless, it looked like something from tomorrow, even if it didn’t live up to that future.

Strengths of the Rabbit R1

Real action. At launch, the R1 offered working app integrations with DoorDash, Uber, and Spotify, alongside transcription, spreadsheet scanning, and a physical interface that actually did things. 
Sounds like one user on Reddit put it:

“It has a display. It costs less. No subscription… The R1 responses sound more human.”

Limitations of Both

Humane AI Pin: Overheating, sporadic performance, missing core features, high price ($699 plus $24/month), and ultimately discontinued the company shut down in early 2025, and supported services ended Feb 28.

Rabbit R1: Charming but glitchy. Misidentifies chips as tacos, flops on basic tasks, battery life was poor, and despite promises, sometimes the UI fails without explanation. Privacy concerns and security flaws also surfaced.

Who Wins in 2025?

Here’s the honest take: both of these tried to be radical alternatives to smartphones, but both stumbled big time.

If you want novelty, style, and a glimpse at what future interfaces could feel like, the AI Pin had the edge until it evaporated. For now, it’s a futuristic artifact, not a daily companion. The Humane experiment might go down with Quibi and Fire Phone in tech lore.

If you want something that (mostly) does stuff even if it’s clunky and uneven, the Rabbit R1 has the utility, the updates, the lower price, and the fact that it’s still alive in 2025. Jony Ive slammed both gadgets as “very poor products,” but Rabbit’s continued evolution at least keeps the story going.

Conclusion

At this moment, neither device dethrones the smartphone. The AI Pin was too precious, under-baked, and short-lived. The Rabbit R1 was more real, more practical, but still premature. If you’re a gadget-obsessed futurist, maybe watch and wait. If you want actual utility, you’re better off with your phone… and maybe wait a bit longer for the next generation of AI sidekicks.

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