“Truly a middle finger”: Humane bricking $700 AI Pins with limited refunds

After launching its AI Pin in April 2024 and reportedly seeking a buyout by May 2024, Humane is shutting down. Most of the people who bought an AI Pin will not get refunds for the devices, which debuted at $700, dropped to $500, and will be bricked on February 28 at noon PT.

At that time, AI Pins, which are lapel pins with an integrated AI voice assistant, camera, speaker, and laser projector, “will no longer connect to Humane’s servers,” and “all customer data, including personal identifiable information… will be permanently deleted from Humane’s servers,” according to Humane’s FAQ page. Humane also stopped selling AI pins as of yesterday and canceled any orders that had been made but not yet fulfilled. Humane said it is discontinuing the AI Pin because it’s “moving onto new endeavors.”

Those new endeavors include selling off key assets, including the AI Pin’s CosmOS operating system and intellectual property, including over 300 patents and patent applications, to HP for $116 million, HP announced on Tuesday. HP expects the acquisition to close this month.

Notably, Humane raised $241 million to make its pin and was reportedly valued at $1 billion before launch. Last year, Humane was seeking a sale price of $750 million to $1 billion, according to Bloomberg.

But the real failure is in the company’s treatment of its customers, who will only get a refund if they “are still within the 90-day return window from their original shipment date,” Humane’s FAQ page says. “All device shipments prior to November 15th, 2024, are not eligible for refunds. All refunds must be submitted by February 27th, 2025.”

AI Pins “will no longer function as a cellular device or connect to Humane’s servers. This means no calls, texts, or data usage will be possible,” according to the startup, which noted that users can’t port their phone number to another device or wireless carrier. Some offline features “like battery level” will still work, Humane said, but overall, the product will become $700 e-waste for most owners in nine days.