Wearable AI devices seem to be going in one of two directions, either becoming a smartphone replacement tool or filling a specific niche; with the disastrous launch of the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin, the replacement route appears to have failed.

More successful seem to be taking smaller tacks, such as the Limitless Pendant, which records conversations and meetings and suggests action items based on what is said.

Or can it be your, uh, friend?

Avi Shiffman, the Harvard dropout who built the Webby Award-winning COVID-19 tracking website at age 17, has developed an AI device called Friend. like Limitless, Friend is a pendant you wear as a necklace It's a pendant that you wear as a necklace.

Today, the company released a trailer showing how the Friend pendant works and opened pre-orders for the off-white version, which will begin shipping in January 2025 for $99.

Always listening, the pendant is not meant to boost your productivity or replace your cell phone. It's supposed to be your companion in the fight against loneliness.

The device lights up in distinctly different colors and features buttons that can be tapped to talk to the pendant; the AI responds via an app that looks like a text message; the pendant is also able to listen to your voice, and it can even listen to you when you're not in the office. Because it is always listening, it can also actively send messages when a friend comments on a program the wearer is watching, as in the video.

And that seems to be about it.

In an interview with Wired, Shiffman said, "Productivity is over, and no one cares. No one can compete with Apple, OpenAI, and these companies that are developing Jarvis. The most important thing in life is really people."

He believes that having an AI companion via a pendant makes it easier to connect than just an app. He states that the only successful example of a large-scale language model is when people talk to an AI about their day.

"I see this product as sort of an emotional toy. I think the only successful use case for a large-scale language model is when people talk to tools like Replika or Character AI about their day and their emotions," Schiffman told TechCrunch.

"But I believe the presence of hardware makes for a better emotional connection."

Apparently, he started out building a productivity AI device called Tab, but then shifted his focus to Friend. The pendant idea remains.

Shiffman responded to potential privacy concerns over the "always listening" tagline by stating that recordings are not stored and texts can be deleted at any time.

Will Friends succeed? Unless Shiffman shares the device with the reviewer, he has more than six months before the order ships. He has already said he will send one to YouTuber Marques Brownlee, who sparked controversy a few months ago by aggressively denouncing the Humane AI Pin.