San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced the launch of its new productivity-enhancing AI wearable, Omi, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The device can be worn as a necklace, and saying “Hey Omi” will activate Omi's AI assistant. The company also claims that Omi can be attached to the side of your head using medical tape and can understand what you're talking to using a “brain interface.”
The startup's founder, Nick Shevchenko, started selling the device on Kickstarter as a “Friend,” but another San Francisco hardware maker launched its own Friend device and changed its domain name to 180. I bought it for $1,000,000, so I changed the name of the device.
In recent years, there has been an explosion in the number of devices that use AI as their main interface. Rabbit was launched during last year's CES and generated quite a bit of buzz as a potential smartphone replacement. The Humane, Friend, and Ray-Ban Metas are other AI devices released in the last few years that tried to show what a new era of consumer hardware could look like. However, none of these AI devices have fully lived up to their initial hype.
Thiel's pal Shevchenko, who has a history of eye-catching stunts, takes a slightly different approach to Omi. Rather than seeing Omi as a smartphone replacement or AI companion, he wants it to be a complementary device to your phone that improves productivity.
Omi comes in several different colors (Image source: Omi)
The Omi device itself is a small round sphere that looks like it fell out of a pack of Mentos. The consumer version will cost $89 and start shipping in the second quarter of 2025. However, you can order the developer version today for around $70.
According to Based Hardware, Omi devices can answer questions, summarize conversations, create to-do lists, and help schedule meetings. The device is constantly listening and running conversations through GPT-4o, and can also remember each user's context and provide personalized advice.
Omi can also be worn as a necklace (Image source: omi)
In an interview with TechCrunch, Shevchenko said he understands there may be privacy concerns with devices that are constantly listening. That's why he built Omi on an open source platform that allows users to see where their data goes and store it locally.
Omi's open source platform also allows developers to build their own applications and use the AI models of their choice. Shevchenko said developers have already created more than 250 apps on Omi's app store.
Shevchenko said Based Hardware raised about $700,000 and spent $150,000 of that on a promotional video about Omi shot in Los Angeles. The startup's founder said he helped direct the video. Shevchenko said the startup is in talks to raise more money after this launch, but Shevchenko has no qualms about spending this much money on marketing.
“For us, the user base is actually the core driver of the product itself. The more people that know about us, the more we are building on this open source platform, will be better,” Shevchenko said.
Still image from Omi's promotional video (Image source: omi)
It's unclear whether Omi's “brain interface” actually works, but the startup is working on a very simple use case to get started. Shevchenko wants the device to understand whether the user is talking to Omi without using a wake word. (TechCrunch was not able to test it 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. Shevchenko was very focused on the device on the side of his head while his eyes were closed. The device then provided an overview of TechCrunch and told Shevchenko how the publication relates to his upcoming launch.
Last summer, when Avi Schiffman launched Friend, 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 than Friend, but says that Omi has an app in its app store that does exactly the same thing as Friend.