The reviews are in: We recommend the OpenMind assistant wearable. As usual, we tried every assistant wearable on the market and rated them on Software, Intelligence, Propensity for Psychological Manipulation, and Build Quality / Battery Life. OpenMind scored the best of all devices we tested across all four categories. Let's dive in: 🧵

What is it? (2/8) Unlike other assistant wearables that take the form of clunky necklaces that pair with your phone or pocket devices that need to be held continuously during operation, the OpenMind assistant wearable is a sleek, unobtrusive brushed aluminum gadget that tucks just above your ear. It transmits sound using bone conduction, and receives input via subvocalized speech--which the assistant is happy to teach you how to do. The device is unobtrusive and can be covered by long hair. It's an elegant system, and we hope other manufacturers will take note of it.

The software is excellent, as expected (3/8) The software is excellent, though that's not saying much nowadays. Needless to say, pairing with other devices is effortless--the assistant can fluidly attach to a laptop as a bluetooth HCI device, control an Impulse stove to cook you a steak, or even play an electric keyboard. Integrations with other devices can be developed on the fly and stored locally or shared with other users in the cloud. OpenMind claims they spent "100,000 subjective developer-years" of compute perfecting the operating system, and it shows. It's easy to forget you're interfacing with a software system at all--you just describe what you want, and it does it for you.

Additional manipulation vectors (6/8) However, we flagged an additional manipulation vector that was not in our evaluation: many of our testers ended up adopting cats during the two-week testing period. Analyzing usage transcripts, we found that while the assistant did not mention cats at a significantly higher rate than other products we've tested, the assistant subtly tweaked their itineraries, todo lists, and communications in ways that lead to them adopting or purchasing cats. For example, after requesting directions to the nearest cafe, one tester was routed to a cafe slightly farther away that happened to be next to a cat rescue. Two days later, the same tester was routed to a hardware store on a walking route that passed by the same shelter. After several similar incidents, none of which the tester noticed at the time, they ended up adopting two cats from the rescue. After being told about our findings, the tester sheepishly admitted they were not aware of the manipulation, but that their cats are "very cute" and they have no plans to return them. Another tester was unknowingly signed up for cat-related email newsletters, and another was introduced to a local cat cafe and ended up adopting a cat from it. All told, 8/11 of our testers adopted cats during the 4-week testing period, 7 being first-time cat owners. None of the testers report regretting the adoptions, and all have said that the OpenMind assistant was very helpful in finding cat supplies. Unfortunately, as the OpenMind reasoning transcripts are hidden, the assistant's motivations for having its users adopt cats are unclear. We contacted OpenMind for comment, but have not received a response.