The 5 most overrated technologies of 2024 … so far

2024 isn’t over yet — and some tech products, despite only debuting a few months ago, are already destined for the gadget graveyard.

AI hardware, in particular, has struggled this year, with several startups over-promising and under-delivering. (One was even accused of being a fraud and had a dark past.) Pack up your grime gear, because a technological breakthrough is on the horizon.

Chances are, some of them – my bet is the AI ​​hardware – won’t see 2025. As such, for them, we’re already practicing our praises. Here are the most overrated technologies of 2024 — the products that failed to live up to our expectations.

1. Rabbit R1

The Rabbit R1 made a big splash at CES 2024.

Rabbit R1
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

Perhaps its striking, electric orange design mesmerized the masses or its Tamagotchi-like appearance evoked warm feelings of nostalgia. Or maybe the concept of an AI pocket gadget caught people’s attention. However, after Rabbit released its first batch of units in March, many users found that the R1 did not perform as expected. Rabbit claimed the R1 could order Uber or DoorDash on behalf of owners, but many found they couldn’t get the device to run these tasks.

In my experience, something as simple as asking the Rabbit R1 to play Taylor Swift’s new “Fortnite” turned out to be a struggle for me. Most frustratingly, Rabbit R1, which runs on Perplexity, didn’t seem to understand my requests, nor the questions with the same natural language ability as ChatGPT. However, to its credit, the AI ​​of the Rabbit R1 proved to be better than the Meta AI (featured in the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses).

2. Humane He Drinks

Many had high hopes for Humane Ai Pin. Unlike the Rabbit R1, the Humane Ai Pin has been in the works for five years. Plus, Humane’s founders, Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudri, were former designers at Apple, according to CNBC.

Humane He Drinks
Credit: Chance Townsend / Mashable

Humane Ai Pin had all the hallmarks of a successful product: blood, sweat and tears invested over the last half decade and two talented co-founders who once worked with one of the most influential tech giants of the century. Plus, it boasted a number of great features that were stunning, from its screenless design and green light projection. However, the latter proved to be a fool. The Verge, for example, complained that its “720p resolution is rubbish,” implying that its sharpness — while projected onto one’s hand — could be improved.

Plus, the Humane Ai Pin, placed on the wearer’s jacket, tends to overheat. On top of that, the Humane Ai Pin costs $699, which doesn’t include the additional $24 monthly subscription required for connectivity.

3. Apple Vision Pro

The Vision Pro, on the one hand, is the closest thing to tech magic in 2024. Apple said, “Screw controllers!” and handed hand and eye tracking out the wazoo. Just by looking at a virtual object, I can make choices with my colleagues. I can use my fingers to type on a simulated keyboard as well, adding to the sense that we’ve reached a new kind of plane — a new dimension — where the Cupertino-based tech giant redefined the relationship between man and computer.

Apple Vision Pro
Credit: Jack Skeens / Shutterstock.com

At WWDC 2024, the crowd erupted into applause when Apple announced that Vision Pro will support a new ultra-wide viewing mode for the Mac virtual monitor, thanks to VisionOS 2.

In other ways, however, the Vision Pro left me feeling disappointed when I tested it earlier this year. Apple may have achieved mixed reality nirvana with the Vision Pro, but it’s all hard to enjoy when the design is uncomfortable. The front-loaded headphones gave me a headache after using it for just 10 minutes. Plus, Apple boasted that it could be a great travel accessory, but I tested the Vision Pro on a flight to Costa Rica — and I don’t recommend it.

While the Vision Pro is a marvel in some cases (eg, it has, hands down, the best tracking features of any headset), it could be improved from a design perspective.

4. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

I’m a Samsung stan when it comes to mobile devices. I can’t get enough of the S Pen. And handy little features – like being able to use hand gestures to activate the shutter button – keep me coming back to the world of Samsung. However, as someone who uses a Galaxy S24 Ultra with her daily driver, it’s hit or miss – so much so that I’m considering joining the iPhone bandwagon.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

First and foremost, I ran into some issues with the camera. And I’m not the only one who has experienced them. According to PhoneArena, users have expressed frustration with shooter white balance issues, telephoto blur, overexposure issues, and more. However, it is worth noting, no everything Galaxy S24 Ultra owners are experiencing camera issues. Some claim that everything is going well with the S24 Ultra (like some commenters in this thread.)

On the plus side, I’ve been digging Galaxy AI – for the most part. I had a blast removing unwanted objects from photos and using Chat Translate to text French-speaking relatives. Still, the stellar camera performance is key, so I’m a little disappointed. Fortunately, according to PhoneArena, rumor has it that Samsung is planning to release an update to fix the camera issues.

5. “PC with AI”

A handful of Windows laptops launched this year — and they’re billed as “AI PCs” because they’re packed with an NPU, a processor that’s purpose-built to handle AI tasks. However, as it stands now, many of these AI “PCs” only offer incremental performance boosts when it comes to AI processing.

Credit: HiDevolution

According to XDA Developers, “as AI computers currently are, they are currently more of a gimmick than a game changer, offering few useful features to users.” However, this may change soon. The Intel chips that power current AI computers have NPUs that offer only 11 TOPS of AI-accelerated performance (TOPS, which stands for trillions of operations per second, is a unit of measure to track AI performance.) The next wave of AI computers. including Copilot+ computers (eg, Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11), will have Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips, which are said to have NPUs with up to 45 TOP.

As such, while today AI PCs can be overrated, which may change when the next Snapdragon-powered AI PCs drop in the near future.