The Plaude NotePin is a great AI voice recorder, and it’s totally doomed - The Verge

The Nugget

The Plaud NotePin is a competent AI voice recorder that excels in transcription and summarization but ultimately faces obsolescence due to the increasing capabilities of existing devices and apps. Dedicated gadgets like NotePin struggle to justify their existence as useful tools when robust features become standard on smartphones and smartwatches.

Make it stick

🎤 The NotePin is a pill-shaped voice recorder that can be easily worn or clipped, making it highly accessible for users.
🔋 With a battery life of 18 hours of recording or 30 days standby, the NotePin is reliable but requires constant recharging.
📱 Competiting with devices like iOS 18 and Google Pixel Recorder, AI voice recording is becoming a standard feature rather than a standalone gadget.
📝 Post-recording, users face manual actions in the Plaud app to transcribe and summarize recordings, adding to time constraints.

The NotePin performs admirably, effectively transcribing and summarizing audio as intended.
It includes accessories for wearing (like a lanyard and wristband) that enhance ease of use.
The device has a low barrier for capturing audio compared to using phones or smartwatches.

Manual Intervention: Users must manually initiate transcriptions and select templates within the app, making it cumbersome and inefficient.
Basic App Functionality: The Plaud app lacks integration capabilities, failing to connect recordings with existing essential digital tasks like adding reminders or integrating grocery lists.
Short-lived Device Utility: As AI features are integrated into more devices, the need for a dedicated voice recorder diminishes significantly.

The gadget thrives on ease of access but falls short in offering closed-loop functionality that users expect.
Despite its good performance, it’s hard to recommend to consumers when integrated AI solutions on existing devices are readily available.
The future for dedicated AI devices seems bleak unless they evolve to integrate more efficiently with users’ digital ecosystems.

"The NotePin is a handy dedicated device for transcribing and summarizing audio."
"AI voice recording is great and handy and being commoditized at an absolutely blistering pace."
"The major problem with the NotePin... is that it’s not useful enough on the other side."
"Building your whole world around a transcription app just doesn’t make any sense."
"AI voice recorders are a great idea — but they’re not a new kind of gadget."

This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.