For nearly two decades, the smartphone has reigned as the ultimate personal device. It swallowed the market for cameras, watches, iPods, GPS units, and even laptops for many. For founders and investors, this dominance created an unspoken rule: building new consumer hardware was a graveyard play. Venture-backed hardware startups struggled with capital intensity, supply-chain risk, and the sheer gravitational pull of iOS and Android.
And yet, 2024–2025 has thrown up a surprising cluster of bets that challenge this orthodoxy: Apple’s Vision Pro, Humane’s AI Pin, and Rabbit’s R1. They are arriving not as accessories to the smartphone, but as attempts to transcend it. Are we witnessing the first flickers of a post-smartphone era, and if so, what does that mean for hardware startups?
From Smartphone Hegemony to Hardware Experimentation
The smartphone ecosystem, with Apple and Google at its core, created both the ceiling and the floor for hardware innovation. On one hand, app developers reached billions with minimal distribution friction. On the other, any new device risked becoming redundant once Apple or Google added its core feature into the OS. Think about how Snapchat Spectacles, GoPro, or standalone fitness trackers were dwarfed when smartphones absorbed their value proposition.
But hardware founders today are sensing an opportunity. As AI systems become more ambient, voice- and intent-driven, the slab of glass in our hands feels both too powerful and too limited, too powerful for basic queries, too limited for immersive or contextual computing. The Vision Pro, AI Pin, and R1 are not just gadgets; they are early probes into what post-smartphone computing might look like.
Apple Vision Pro: Luxury Trojan Horse
Apple’s Vision Pro is the most obvious contender for a new device paradigm. At US$3,500, it is clearly not a mass-market product. But Apple rarely launches products to scale on day one. Instead, Vision Pro feels like the equivalent of the original Mac or iPhone, a technology demonstrator, planting a flag in spatial computing.
The opportunity here is not just VR or AR, but the reframing of everyday tasks, productivity, entertainment, collaboration, through an immersive, persistent layer. The risk, however, is cultural. Head-mounted devices remain socially awkward and physically demanding.
Vision Pro’s long-term bet is that form factor, battery life, and cultural acceptance will converge.Hardware startups in this space have an opening to build peripherals, niche use-cases, or software ecosystems that Apple won’t prioritize.
Humane AI Pin: A Device Without a Screen
The Humane AI Pin takes the opposite approach, radical minimalism. No screen, just a voice-first, AI-native device that projects a tiny interface onto your palm. Humane is asking a provocative question: if AI can answer, suggest, and act on your behalf, why do you need an app ecosystem or a touchscreen at all?
The promise is compelling: a device that reduces digital addiction and serves as an ever-present but unobtrusive assistant. The risk is execution. Humane has faced criticism over battery life, latency, and usability.
More importantly, it is attempting to shift deeply entrenched consumer habits. People are conditioned to check, scroll, and tap. Convincing them to unlearn that behavior is perhaps harder than building the device itself. For founders, Humane’s journey is instructive: hardware innovation must be paired with habit innovation.
Rabbit R1: The “AI Walkman”
If Humane strips down, Rabbit adds charm. The Rabbit R1, shaped like a pocketable walkie- talkie, is positioned as a “pocket AI companion.” Its proposition is narrower: instead of being a general computing platform, it is an agent interface. You ask, it acts, whether that means booking tickets, generating a playlist, or running an API call in the background.
Rabbit’s genius lies in its narrative. Unlike the Vision Pro’s “spatial future” or Humane’s “anti-smartphone ethos,” Rabbit says: here’s a fun, affordable ($199) toy that lets you experience AI as a dedicated physical presence. Its risk is commoditization.
If voice-driven agents become standard inside iPhones and Android phones, Rabbit could be marginalized quickly. But if it can build a developer ecosystem and unique use-cases, it may carve out a durable niche.
Are We Really in a Hardware Renaissance?
The clustering of these launches suggests that we may be in the early stages of a hardware renaissance, but one that is very different from the smartphone boom of the 2000s. Three dynamics stand out:
AI as the new operating system
The real platform shift isn’t glass versus pin versus headset, it’s the AI layer that interprets intent and executes tasks. Hardware becomes the skin, not the core.
Form factor diversity
Instead of converging toward a single universal device, we may see divergence: headsets for immersion, pins for minimalism, and pocket devices for playful agency. Each could succeed in its own niche.
Capital and supply chains
Unlike the early 2010s, supply chains in Shenzhen, Bangalore, and elsewhere are now more accessible to startups. What remains brutal is go-to-market. Without Apple or Google’s ecosystem, consumer adoption is expensive and slow.
Risks for Founders and Investors
Hardware remains capital intensive, with brutal unit economics and the constant risk of obsolescence. Humane’s struggles remind us that even well-funded teams can stumble on execution. Investors must recognize that hardware startups are less about quick 2x exits and more about decade-long bets. For founders, the challenge is to design not just devices, but ecosystems: developer APIs, app marketplaces, or at least integration layers with existing systems.
The risk is that AI-native hardware is reduced to a transitional curiosity, like PDAs before the iPhone. The reward, if even one device class sticks, is that it could open the next trillion-dollar platform.
Why This Moment Feels Different
We have seen hardware hype cycles before, smartwatches, VR headsets, wearables. What feels different now is timing. Smartphones are plateauing in innovation, AI is reaching usable maturity, and consumer fatigue with screens is palpable. Add to that a maturing manufacturing base and investor appetite for “hard tech,” and the ingredients for a genuine hardware renaissance are in place. If the 2010s were about apps, the 2020s may be about AI-native devices, hardware that doesn’t just display information but interprets and acts on behalf of its user.
Final Word
Apple Vision Pro, Humane AI Pin, and Rabbit R1 may not all succeed. Some may flop spectacularly. But together, they mark the first coordinated challenge to the smartphone’smonopoly on personal computing. For hardware founders, this is both invitation and warning. The invitation is to dream beyond the slab of glass; the warning is that execution, ecosystems, and cultural acceptance matter as much as technology.
Whether this becomes a full-blown renaissance or a brief experimental flourish will depend less on the brilliance of devices and more on whether they can reshape habits, workflows, and trust. The dawn may not yet be sunrise, but the sky is definitely changing.
