Case 01 · Wearable
The pin never left the phone
Humane raised more than $230 million to replace the smartphone with a $699 lapel and a $24 T-Mobile line. In February 2025 HP bought CosmOS, the patents, and the people for $116 million. The pin was not in the deal. Ten days later the servers went dark.
2018–2025 · Sold for parts · 18 Feb 2025 · 9 min · 4 Sep 2026 · .md
The cloud was the product. When the server died, so did the pin.
Desk view
The file
- Founded
- 2018 · Imran Chaudhri, Bethany Bongiorno
- Raised
- $230M+ · Microsoft, Tiger, Altman, Benioff
- Ask
- Talks in the $750M–$1B range before the sale
- Ship price
- $699, later $499 · plus $24/mo T-Mobile
- Exit
- HP · $116M for CosmOS, patents, people. Not the Pin.
- Brick date
- 28 Feb 2025 · 12:00 PST · servers off
What broke
01 · Product
Every demo was a thing the phone already did — slower, hotter, less accurate. Marques said the quiet part: smartphones are pretty incredible. A pin that cannot send mail or set a timer is not a replacement. It is a second device that needs the first.
The phone kept the job.
02 · Power
The pin overheated on a review desk. Reviewers carried spare packs for a day. In June 2024 Humane told owners to stop using the charge case because of a fire risk. A wearable that cannot sit on a body and cannot sit in its case has no third place to live.
Thermals ate the form.
03 · Distribution
No app store. No port-out when the line died. Laser ink that washed out in sun. The pitch was presence — look up from the glass. The market kept the glass. Returns ran ahead of sales.
There was no channel except the story.
04 · The cloud
Voice, answers, .Center — all of it lived on Humane’s servers. Offline, the pin could show a battery. That is a brick with a light. HP bought the operating system and the patents. It did not buy a consumer hardware line. Customers who purchased before 15 Nov 2024 were told to recycle.
HP kept CosmOS. Owners kept e-waste.
Beats
2018
The lab
Two Apple veterans leave to build a post-phone computer. The story is presence. The work is a projector, a battery, and a model that is not theirs.
Mar 2023
The raise before the product
A $100 million Series C lands from Microsoft, LG’s venture arm, and Tiger Global. The pin has not shipped. The round is the product.
9 Nov 2023
Launch
CNBC: $699 on the lapel, $24 a month to T-Mobile. Microsoft, Altman, and Benioff are on the cap table. The pitch is a smartphone replacement.
14 Apr 2024
The review
MKBHD posts the clip. Doing something you already do on a phone, slower and less reliable. Occasional glimpse of a future. The comments sit the missing column: heat, battery, price.
5 Jun 2024
The case
Humane tells customers to stop using the charge case. Fire risk. The Verge and MacRumors carry it. A second hardware fault on a device that already could not make it through a day.
18 Feb 2025
The sale
HP takes most of the company for $116 million — people, CosmOS, 300-plus patents. Sales of the pin stop the same day. Support ends in ten days.
28 Feb 2025
The brick
Noon Pacific. Servers off. Data deleted. Line cannot be ported. Humane tells owners to take the pin to e-waste. Refunds only if it shipped on or after 15 Nov 2024.
X desk
It broke there first
Marques Brownlee @MKBHDBreak · 11.0M views
Doing something you could already do on your phone, but slower, more annoying, or less reliable. Turns out smartphones are pretty incredible.
14 Apr 2024
AppleLeaker @LeakerAppleComment
Overheats. Terrible battery. Dim laser-ink. Slow. Hallucinations. What can this do that a future AI-powered Apple Watch can’t?
12 Apr 2024
MacRumors.com @MacRumorsSource
Humane tells customers to stop using the AI Pin’s charge case due to fire risk.
5 Jun 2024
Ray Wong @raywongyCorrection · 54.8k views
Servers off 28 Feb 2025, 12:00 PST. Data deleted. The line cannot be ported. Recycle the pin. Offline it still shows a battery.
18 Feb 2025
Sources
House
Sit the next issue. Print the chain.
A house underwrites one map — electrification, physical AI, the picks that do not trend until the assembler does.