Controlling Phones with Tongue, Sticking Microphones to Skin: How Bizarre Is This Wave of AI Hardware?

This year, AI hardware has become the most visible trend, but product forms are undergoing a fundamental shift. The previous generation, represented by AI Pin and Rabbit R1, tried to create 'another universal terminal'—with disappointing results. The new wave of devices no longer vies for the phone's position, instead seeking out bodily crevices the phone cannot reach.

BodyPark ATOM, VOX, and MouthPad occupy three different positions: a camera outside the body observing movements, a microphone on the skin capturing whispers, and a touchpad inside the mouth reading the tongue. The closer they get to the body, the more direct the signals they capture, and the more specific the problems they solve.

The essence of this shift is that AI hardware is evolving from standalone devices to miniature interfaces attached to the body. The machine recedes into the background, but sensors keep penetrating deeper into the body.

BodyPark ATOM is a pocket-sized fitness camera placed at arm's length. It tracks 34 key points on the body, judges exercise form, counts repetitions, and provides real-time voice reminders. It recognizes over 1,000 training movements and can generate workout plans based on goals.

Unlike phone fitness apps or smartwatches, ATOM targets a more specific problem: Is your current movement correct? It shifts from recording results to understanding the body—breaking down a squat into joint angles, movement trajectory, speed, and amplitude, then instantly detecting deviations.

ATOM represents a more realistic path for AI hardware after the setbacks of AI Pin and Rabbit R1: instead of trying to be a new phone that does everything, it takes over a sufficiently specific scenario—one where the phone is not the optimal solution.

VOX is a tiny microphone hidden under clothing, weighing only 11 grams. Unlike ordinary microphones that pick up sound from the air, VOX adheres to the skin like a stethoscope, capturing vibrations transmitted through the body. The company calls it an 'invisible keyboard.'

Press a button to dictate notes, send messages, or give commands to AI; press again to stop. In demonstrations, it works normally even with a hair dryer running nearby. This solves a persistent awkwardness in voice interaction: AI wants humans to communicate by speaking, but people don't feel comfortable reading their searches, messages, and prompts aloud in public.

The noisier the environment, the harder it is for ordinary microphones to hear; the quieter the environment, the more awkward it is to speak to a screen. VOX's solution is to shorten the sound transmission path from the room to the body, reducing ambient noise and making voice input relatively private.

But this 'privacy' comes with an intuitive cost: the device must further invade personal space. If you forget to stop recording, if overly private conversations are captured, if data management isn't secure enough—these are all potential risks.

MouthPad is a custom transparent dental retainer about 1mm thick and weighing around 10 grams. It has a tiny touch-sensitive area on the retainer; moving the tongue controls the cursor, scrolling, clicking, and dragging. Slight head movements and inhalation can also trigger commands. It connects via Bluetooth to phones, tablets, and computers, functioning like a wireless mouse living in the mouth.

For most people, this might be the most 'outlandish' of the three products. But understanding the background reveals: MouthPad was not originally designed for a 'future lifestyle' but for people who cannot use their hands—such as those with disabilities, ALS patients, or spinal cord injury patients—allowing them to operate phones and computers with their tongues.

The same device can thus be both a technological marvel for the majority and a genuine necessity for a minority. For them, MouthPad is more like a channel to work, communicate, play, and even live independently again.

MouthPad's relationship with AI is that it can replace the VOX microphone for initiating and controlling AI agents. More importantly, it reminds us: judging whether a body interface is 'excessive' largely depends on whether the problem it solves is important enough.

The closer ATOM, VOX, and MouthPad get to the body, the more direct the signals they capture, but privacy issues escalate accordingly. Traditional privacy discussions focus on what apps read; body-worn hardware pushes the question further: before information becomes text, photos, or location data, has the body itself already become data?

When movements, sound vibrations, and subtle habits can all be understood by machines, manufacturers may obtain not just what users say, but also how they move, when they tire, how they hesitate, and what they don't actually say out loud.

These products may not all become mass-market items—they might be too expensive, too niche, or ultimately serve only fitness enthusiasts, specific professions, and accessibility users. But they point in the same direction: AI hardware is evolving from standalone devices to miniature interfaces attached to the body.

What truly needs to be decided in the future may not just be whether to buy an AI hardware device, but which parts of the body we are willing to open up as interfaces.