Humane announced on Tuesday that most of its assets have been acquired by HP for $116 million. The hardware startup is immediately discontinuing sales of its $499 AI Pins. Humane alerted customers who have already purchased the Pin that their devices will stop functioning before the end of the month — at 12 p.m. PST on February 28, 2025, according to a blog post.
After that date, the company says its AI Pins will no longer connect to Humane’s servers. The devices won’t be capable of calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access. Humane is advising AI Pin owners to transfer their important photos and data to an external device immediately.
Humane plans to dissolve its customer support team for the AI Pin on February 28. The company says customers who bought an AI pin in the last 90 days are eligible for a refund, according to an FAQ, but anyone who bought a device before then is not.
The news brings an end to the short-lived, buzzy hardware startup. Humane made a splash in April 2024 by launching its AI Pin, which it positioned as a smartphone replacement. The Bay Area startup, founded by ex-Apple employees Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, raised more than $230 million to create the device.
However, Humane’s AI Pin disappointed many early reviewers and customers, creating a crisis for the company. At one point last summer, Humane’s returns for the AI Pin started outpacing its sales, according to reporting from The Verge. Adding insult to injury, Humane also told customers to stop using the device’s charging case, citing battery fire concerns. In October, the company, which long charged customers $699 for its AI Pin, dropped the price by $200.
HP is acquiring Humane’s engineers and product managers, according to a blog post announcing the acquisition. The Humane team will form the basis of a new group within HP called HP IQ, which it describes as an “AI innovation lab focused on building an int …