The other goal of the Button is rapid response time. Unlike the Humane Ai pin, which got lots of criticism for taking a painfully long time to reply to queries, the Button is designed to be nearly instantaneous. In a demo via Zoom call, I watched Nolet ask the Button for a recommendation for the best sandwich shops in my neighborhood. While the Button didn’t choose my idea of the best sandwich place around, it did at least answer all the questions within a second. It can also be immediately interrupted by pressing the button, which is a great feature for people like me who cannot tell a chatbot to shut up fast enough.
Nolet is unapologetic about the very clear Apple ethos you might be able to suss out in the design.
“The Humane pin felt a little geeky to wear, right?” Nolet says. “But the iPod shuffle? Really cool. That’s where the idea started, and then we just put all of our Apple-esque expertise into it and tried to refine it into something that we thought would actually be useful.”
Nearly all their product images and videos show the Button being used as a wearable, but Nolet insists the device can also be kept in a pocket, bag, or car glove box as well.
“My cofounder says we can’t tell people it looks cool; they have to decide,” Nolet says. “Our intention is to build something that is kind of fashionable, but it’s up to you guys to tell us if it’s cool.”
Though Apple has long been a leader in technological coolness, it has struggled in the virtual reality space, specifically with its too expensive, too heavy Vision Pro and that devices complicated rollout. Apple is not alone on that front. Meta is actively rejiggering support for its VR efforts. Nolet posits that part of the reason for that instability is that VR has required building hardware and the software ecosystems to support it at the same time.
“There was no software innovation that we were anchored to as an industry, so I think it’s quite a hard pitch,” Nolet says. “It’s much, much easier to stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Courtesy of Button