While the invention of the smartphone has resulted in a massive changes to the way we work, play, communicate and consume media, the technology is now subject to two opposing cultural trends. On the one hand we’re becoming more tied to our phones than ever. On the other, there’s a growing acknowledgement that they have the potential to interrupt our concentration, productivity and happiness.

While the constant mobile connectivity of phones has given us ways to keep in touch, and made everything from movie-watching to public transport much more convenient, they also nag us constantly with notifications, drawing us into addictive behaviours. Could a new wave of technology help address this?

In a video demo, an AI Pin user asks about the nutritional value of dragonfruit.

The smartphone is the heart of our online connectivity when we’re on the go, meaning we not only use it constantly to find information or consume media, but we need it to supply data to other devices such as headphones and watches. But technically we could do the same thing with any device capable of communicating with mobile towers, so is there a better gadget for the job than the powerful screen-covered pocket computers we currently use?

US company Humane wants us to think so, and its solution is a $1000 magnetic gadget called the AI Pin, which packs a camera, microphone, speaker and touchpad and which you wear on your clothes. It’s a lot like a phone with no screen, which you interact with by speaking. You can ask it questions you would normally Google, but it also has access to personal information such as your text messages so you could ask about something someone sent you recently. It will let you know if someone’s calling you, but will also summarise less urgent information rather than alerting you to every message and email.

The AI Pin has a projector for displaying on your hand.

When you do need visual information, the AI Pin has a projector so it can display text and simple graphics on the palm of your hand. You can interact with it by tilting and moving your fingers. The camera on the device can be used to capture quick photos.

Early impressions of the device — which is currently only sold in the US — have not been overly positive, and the consensus seems to be that most of us still need the option of a screen for day to day life. But it’s easy to see how the idea — offloading the central processing, connectivity and AI to a device that is not a phone — is a good one. In the future, we may be able to choose what devices we want to take with us, be it headphones, watch or a little credit card sized screen, and have it work with our connected pin.