Aina

Building the next generation of interfaces for the age of AI. Design-led consumer hardware.
SF × Bangalore.
↓ Join the Private Pilot

[Robert Scoble @Scobleizer]

The product is more important than the box. In both these cases.

But the box will get you into Apple stores.

Much more interesting than I was expecting. Am not compensated by them. See you in November when I week have a lot to say about it.

Regarding boxes it isn’t as cool as @maticrobots.

Their robot rolls out of their box onto your floor and goes to work. @mehul started with the product unboxing when he launched his company in my kitchen back in 2024.

If both appear in Apple stores next year I wouldn’t be shocked.

Can’t understate how important the unboxing experience is.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

@rohildev And why stop at talking to AI? Controlling your AI tools and making calls without touching your phone sounds pretty good too. Launching on Nov 5!

~ sent via Aina

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Nov 5 | Everything Changes.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

@sabakarimm Missed us 👀

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Some people around you are already living in the future.

You might have sat next to one at a café. Seen one looking a little too calm during a meeting. Or noticed someone who never seems to reach for their phone (anymore!).

Our team is in San Francisco right now, along with some of our early pilot users. So keep an eye out.

Think you’ve spotted one of us? DM us what you saw. If you’re right, we’ve got a spot saved for you for early access.

Aina Private Pilot is live.

We can’t wait to show you what the future of interfaces looks like. Very soon.

[Priya Tyagi @priahtyagi]

“What if we just put three buttons on the desk?”
“Three buttons for what?”
“Everything.”

That conversation captures a lot of what we have been experimenting with at our HCI lab for the past year.

The form of the interface has changed quite a bit. The questions we're trying to answer haven't.

Looking back, it's pretty incredible how far that one idea has taken us.

And now, we're getting closer to sharing Aina with the world. Same obsession, much much bigger ambition.

From three keys on a desk to Aina. Quite a lot has happened in between.

Cntd. in thread..

[Aina @AinaInterface]

@code_kartik We might have something for you!

[Aina @AinaInterface]

@TheMindScourge Keep the smartphone. We have other plans for the interface!

[Shubh Srivastava @idleshubh]

I just joined the @AinaInterface pilot.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Precision machinery still leaves plenty of work for human hands.
Not long now before Aina leaves ours and reaches our first pilots.

Into the final stretch!

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Fair, Seth. We know the pieces don’t give away much on their own. But there’s a little something hidden in everything we share in the meantime 👀

It’ll all perfectly make sense when we reveal the full story.

Our pilot has just begun, and we’re launching later this year.

Keep those post notifications on a little longer and we promise you won't be disappointed!

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Basics, taken more seriously than basics usually are. That’s one way to wear Aina, for now.

Launching soon! Until then, watch closely. You might spot Aina in the wild.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

Some of Aina’s story is already hiding in its identity.

Its name means mirror, which led us to reflection, chrome, geometry, and an identity that changes with its surroundings.

There is still a lot about Aina we can’t reveal, but this is a closer look at some of the identity decisions behind it.

More soon.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

A finished product can look deceptively simple. But what goes into it are the nuances of manufacturing: PCBs being fabricated, components being placed and soldered, assemblies coming together layer by layer, and an enormous amount of machinery, precision, process, and coordination that you would never guess from the finished product.

We’re building alongside manufacturing partners whose worlds revolve around end mills, molds, carbide inserts, and details measured in microns.

This is what’s #BehindTheBuild.

[Aina @AinaInterface]

@_swanand @lazyapprove Metalheads ⚡️

[Atharva @here_atharva]

Back in January, we were going to CES as a stealth startup. We needed business cards. But a business card's entire job is to tell people who you are, and we weren't allowed to say.

So me and @raktimrajkalita came up with a card that would transform from saying Mirage to Aina. Every card we handed out that week was already carrying our real name concealed within it. Six months later, Mirage had faded to Aina just as we came out of stealth. No app, no QR code, nobody touching anything.

Wrote up the whole build — the chemistry, the problems, the rejects ↓
https://t.co/VEkyR7l6t1

[Aina @AinaInterface]

All facets of Aina.

[Priya Tyagi @priahtyagi]

What a feeling to see our marketing experiment feature on the @MadOMarketing page.

Have been following MOM for years, like many of us here, so getting to be on the other side of that feed has to be surreal.

HUGE Shoutout to our design savants, @here_atharva & @raktimrajkalita who brought this whole idea to life.

A few months ago they took plain receipt paper and turned it into a business card that gradually transforms the print to reveal our real name (Aina) over time.

What stays with me is how little it took. No fancy material, no big production. Just a good read on paper most of us treat as trash the second we're handed it.

[Apoorv Shankar @lazyapprove]

We hosted a private factory tour for some of our early pilot users today.

Shared a piece of our journey with them: from the early Project Mirage days to how Aina came together, the experiments, the prototypes, and the hardware that is now going into their hands.

As we start the Pilot, we will be hosting more of these. Sign up and we will see you at our next closed-door walkthrough.