Two AI gadgets that will make your life better and two that will never make it better.

Public Enemy No. 1: Smartphone

Charge: stole your attention, your sanity, your happiness.

Reward: New gadgets powered by AI (up to $699)

After years of smartphone innovation, a new device aims to free us from our smartphones. AI assistants are embedded in glasses and lapel pins. Sometimes you don’t need your smartphone nearby. Please try to imagine! We have our hands free again to eat, push strollers, and brush our teeth.

San Francisco-based startup Humane has put its AI computer in a $699 pin. Rabbit, a startup based in Santa Monica, California, has put it in a little red box for $199. Meta has added AI to its $299 Ray-Ban smart glasses that come equipped with a camera.

They look different, but the technology is similar. Powered by a large language model, virtual assistants use a camera to see and a microphone to listen. And they will try to help you. The word “try” is emphasized like an elephant.

Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin are more science projects than finished products. I thought about it a lot during the weeks of testing. “What did I do to deserve this?” error message. Delayed response time. A battery that always runs out. My 2 year old heard the humane pin say “enter your passcode” over and over again and ran around the house screaming it.

Meta, on the other hand, has created a simple and affordable gadget that is the envy of other tech giants.

When Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Assistant were introduced 10 years ago, we expected real smart assistants to be everywhere. No screens or small boxes required. We could never figure it out. Now, generative AI may succeed in giving us invisible computer wonders. These are the first real attempts to make it happen.

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Behold the abundance of AI gadgets:

Humane AI Pin: A grandma’s heavy brooch designed by Iron Man’s stylist. Clip the device connected to your phone to your shirt, press and hold the touchpad and ask a question. When you stick your hand out, a built-in “laser ink” display is projected onto your palm, but it’s hard to see outdoors. Also, I’m lucky that I don’t look like a mime when trying to get it to work.

Rabbit R1: You’re not wearing a bright red rabbit. Instead, the box, which is about the size of a Kraft single pack, fits easily in your pocket. Press and hold the button to ask your assistant a question, and use the scroll wheel to move between on-screen menus.

Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses: Tom Cruise’s famous “Risky Business” Wayfarer sunglasses, but with a camera and microphone. All you have to do is say “Hey Meta…” and your assistant will be there. Unlike the other two that connect directly to your phone or Wi-Fi, this one relies on your smartphone.

Each has its own hardware drawbacks, but they share a major drawback. The thing is, there’s no keyboard, so you always have to speak out loud. I hope your friends and family have good noise canceling headphones.

trick

To see them in action, I strapped them all on my body and went on a test tour.

visual recognition. Using your device’s camera and generative AI connectivity, you can ask questions about everything you see. I visited the pet adoption center “Bideawee” in New York. And yes, all three gadgets were able to tell the difference between cats and dogs, but only Meta consistently named the breed, which seemed to be fairly accurate.

Party tricks aside, Meta also did a great job with situational answers. When I looked at my adorable puppy and asked what I should feed him, my meta assistant replied: “Great Dane puppies need a high-quality large dog puppy food that is rich in protein, moderate fat, and contains adequate vitamins and minerals. ”

Meta may have a bad reputation for data collection and creepy ads, so this may trigger a promotion for Purina. The company says the photos and videos you take won’t be used for personalized ads, but the Meta AI feature is subject to its terms of service, which states that AI prompts can be used to improve the product. .

Language translation. Humane and Rabbit promise live translation in over 12 languages ​​with her, so I stopped by Manhattan Mandarin to meet my patient new tutor, Ms. Michelle Tomizawa.

Rabbits don’t do well. It took me a full four minutes to translate basic guidebook phrases like “Where’s the restroom?” I know it’s faster to check every hallway in the building. The company says the fix was released in Thursday’s software update.

But for the Humane pin, we had an actual conversation in English and Michelle in Chinese. I asked for directions to the restroom (second floor and left), whether there were nuts in the dumplings (no), and what to do in Beijing. (Here we come, Forbidden City!)

However, when we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch, Ping translated everything the waitress said into Spanish. A reboot was required to fix it. (Watch my video to see it unfold.)

Meta glasses do not provide live voice translation. Translate text in the selected language in photos and sign language, but not Chinese.

General assistance. These assistants do more than just repeat what’s on the web, like Siri or Alexa. Each gave us detailed instructions on exactly how to plant tulips and grill steaks.

However, the advanced AI assistant was unable to perform basic functions of a smart assistant, such as setting a timer. When I asked the rabbit to play Taylor Swift’s latest album, it immediately played her song from 18 years ago. Additionally, it takes so long to get answers from Humane and Rabbit that you have to play music on hold.

Rabbit and Humane have already released software updates that address some issues. They plan to release more.

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Tech companies are all talking about the next big step: AI agents. These personal assistants can anticipate our needs and respond to them on our behalf.

It stands to reason that this more human-like assistant would need to live inside a gadget that can see and understand the world. It’s no surprise that it’s connected to the most important devices in our lives.

Yes, there are two AI gadgets that can help you right now. One is the smartphone you already own.

the other one is? That cool Meta Ray Ban. Not only are Meta’s AI tools fun and reliable, but thanks to the built-in camera in the glasses, you can easily take photos and videos while playing with your kids.

Life is so much better when you’re not looking down at a screen. Or yell at a brooch in a restaurant!

Email Joanna Stern at [email protected].