Omi AI Unveils Wearable AI Companion with Future Brain-Reading Capabilities at CES 2025

This AI Companion Might Read Your Thoughts in the Future

At launch, Omi will only be available with audio-only capability Omi AI, a San Francisco-based AI firm, unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) companion at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025). Currently available for pre-order, the device can be worn in multiple ways. Once paired with a smartphone (it supports both Android and iOS), it continuously listens to the user and their surroundings. The company aims the device as both a companion that can answer queries as well as a mentor that can take notes and remember things on behalf of the user. Additionally, the AI firm also claims that the device can read the thoughts of the user with a future over-the-air (OTA) update. The wearable AI device is priced at $89 (roughly Rs. 7,640) and can be pre-ordered on the website. It is available in six colour options and is expected to be shipped globally in the second quarter of 2025. Notably, at launch, Omi will be available with audio-only features. However, the company has also promised to provide priority access to a separate "brain-computer interface" module after the launch. It will likely have to be purchased separately. The AI firm claims this interface will allow the AI device to read the user's brain waves. The Verge reported, after a live demo of the product, that the Omi AI companion can read the brain waves of a user to gauge when the person is talking to the device as opposed to another individual. The company claims that this feature will make it seamless to use the device and eliminate the need for wake words or prompts to enable its functionality. The publication noted that the feature's capability could not be fully verified. Keeping aside the thought reading ability, the Omi AI companion can be used as a regular AI device similar to the Limitless Pendant, Humane AI Pin, and Friend. It can summarise a meeting, answer queries, search the web to find real-time information and perform other AI chatbot functions. However, it needs to be connected to a smartphone to be able to operate. Omi also has an app store with more than 250 apps. These apps are like plugins and can be made to send audio input to Google Drive and more. Notably, when turned on, Omi is constantly listening and does not require a wake word. However, users can switch whether they want the device to listen to everyone around them or just the user.

CES 2025: This Wearable AI Orb Listens to Your Thoughts at All Times

The device is meant to be a companion to your phone and it costs $89. AI devices are all over the place. And CES 2025 is a place where you will see many interesting products and concepts surrounding new technologies. Omi is one of those interesting entrants in the tech space, and what this AI device does certainly makes it one of its kind. Omi is a small orb-shaped AI device that listens to conversations to summarize or obtain more information about them. The battery lasts for up to three days on a single charge. The demonstration video shows people wearing them on their temples and the device reading their brains. But, it's worth noting that the current version is audio-only. The ability to read brain data will ship with a separate brain-interface module sometime in Q2 2025. It should be able to use a single electrode to process one channel of brain signals without invoking the companion. Once the brain-interface module ships, you need to wear it on your temple to get the most out of it, as it will automatically understand what you're thinking. If you do so, it also eliminates the need to click a button or say "Hey Omi". As for how it works, if you have a conversation about, say, a cool headphone that you've always wanted to try, the device will process that information and send you a notification about what the device does and how good/bad it is. Similarly, the video shows how it can translate and send you what to say. Omi's creator Nik Shevchenko wants to build a device that can read the brain and wants to do so without having to implant chips into the brain like Neuralink. He says this can eventually be done by increasing the number of electrodes to the head, but he says that's still at least a couple of years away. Underneath, Omi uses the GPT-4o model to generate replies and remember the context. Since privacy is a big concern when it comes to these kinds of devices, Nik has made Omi open-source. Users can opt to store their data locally.

Omi, a competitor to Friend, wants to boost your productivity using AI and a 'brain interface'

San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced the launch of a new AI wearable, Omi, to boost productivity during the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas this week. The device can be worn as a necklace where Omi's AI assistant can be activated by saying "Hey Omi." The startup also claims Omi can be attached to the side of your head, using medical tape, and use a "brain interface" to understand when you're talking to it. The startup's founder, Nik Shevchenko, started marketing this device on Kickstarter as "Friend," but changed the device's name after another San Francisco hardware maker launched his own Friend device and bought the domain name for $1.8 million. In recent years, we've seen an explosion of devices that use AI as their main interface. Rabbit launched during last year's CES, and generated a considerable amount of buzz as a potential replacement for your smartphone. Humane, Friend, and the Ray-Ban Metas were some other AI devices released in the last few years, which tried to show what a new era of consumer hardware could look like. However, none of these AI devices have quite lived up to their initial hype. Shevchenko, a Thiel fellow with a history of eye-grabbing stunts, is taking a slightly different approach with Omi. Instead of seeing the device as a smartphone replacement or an AI companion, he wants Omi to be a complementary device to your phone that boosts your productivity. The Omi device itself is a small, round orb that looks like it fell out of a pack of Mentos. The consumer version costs $89 and will start shipping in Q2 of 2025. However, you can order a developer version for delivery today for roughly $70. Based Hardware says the Omi device can answer your questions, summarize your conversations, create to-do lists, and help schedule meetings. The device is constantly listening and running your conversations through GPT-4o, and it also can remember the context about each user to offer personalized advice. In an interview with TechCrunch, Shevchenko says he understands that there may be privacy concerns with a device that's always listening. That's why he built Omi on an open-source platform where users can see where their data is going, or choose to store it locally. Omi's open-source platform also allows developers to build their own applications or use the AI model of their choice. Shevchenko says developers have already created more than 250 apps on Omi's app store. Shevchenko says Based Hardware has raised roughly $700,000, and he spent $150,000 of it on promotional videos around Omi shot in Los Angeles. The startup's founder says he helped direct the videos himself. He says the startup is in talks to raise more capital after this launch, however, Shevchenko has no doubts about spending this much on marketing. "For us, the user base is actually the core driver of the product itself. The more people that know about us, the better the product becomes because we are built on this open source platform," said Shevchenko. It's unclear if the "brain interface" of Omi actually works, but the startup is tackling a fairly simple use case to start. Shevchenko wants his device to understand whether a user is talking to Omi or not, without using one of its wake words. (TechCrunch was not able to test it out for ourselves at this time). But in a demo shared with TechCrunch, Shevchenko used the brain interface by closing his eyes and asking "Can you tell me about TechCrunch?" without using any of Omi's wake words. While his eyes were closed, Shevchenko says he was focusing very hard on the device on the side of his head. The device then offered a summary of TechCrunch and told Shevchenko how the publication would be relevant to his upcoming launch. When Avi Schiffman launched Friend last summer, Shevchenko released a diss track on X claiming his device was "the original Friend." Shevchenko now claims that Omi is a different type of product from Friend, but he does say there's an app on Omi's app store that does exactly what Friend does.