- Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber dismissed standalone GenAI hardware as unnecessary
- She advocates integrating artificial intelligence into existing products, such as Logitech webcams and the MX Master 4 with Copilot integration
- Competing approaches include Ray-Ban’s Meta Gen 2 Smart Glasses and Plaud’s NotePin AI recorder
For Hanneke Faber, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Logitech, putting Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into standalone hardware is just a “solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Logitech is a Swiss maker of PC peripherals that builds keyboards, mice and other components, and its CEO offered these regards in a recent Bloomberg interview. She said this in reference to the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 – two hardware gadgets released in the last year that were met with a lot of criticism.
These products were supposed to replace the smartphone in some respects, but apparently failed by being slow, limited in features and locked behind subscriptions.
Embedding AI into existing hardware
That said, they succeeded in sparking a conversation about whether general-purpose AI should even be integrated into a standalone entity. Faber claims there’s nothing these devices can do that smartphones and PCs can’t – and do better at.
Instead, companies should be more focused on including Generative AI in their existing products, she believes. Logitech’s webcams are already powered by AI in a sense that they can reframe the image when needed and filter out background noise in a smart way. MX Master 4, the successor to one of the most famous computer mice in existence, has a dedicated button that displays either ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot.
Ray-Ban is on its way to complete something along these lines. Its Meta Gen 2 Smart Glasses is a wearable that integrates AI, cameras, a microphone, and AR-like features, and the company says it will be useful for hands-free photo and video capture, voice commands, and AI-assisted tasks such as translation, live captioning, and the like.
At the same time, there are other creative startups building completely new hardware from scratch, such as the Plaud NotePin Wearable AI Voice Recorder. This wearable pin/clip/neck strap records audio and uses AI to transcribe, tag speakers and more. It is marketed for meetings, lectures and the like.
Which approach ultimately succeeds – we will have to wait and see. One thing is for sure – the future will be filled with AI-powered gadgets.
Via The register
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