With Humane Ai Pin revenues outstripping sales and MKBHD calling the Rabbit R1 “barely reviewable,” one would have hoped the days of pointless AI wearables were over, but it seems not. NotePin is the latest pointless AI wearable that should be an app.
Plaud has already launched an AI voice recorder that pairs with your iPhone and performs the same functions without any additional hardware. Not content with that, they've now announced a wearable that pairs with your iPhone and performs the same functions without any additional hardware…
Wired Report:
Their latest product is called the Proud NotePin (nothing could be more brilliant than this naming convention), and it basically takes all the functionality of the Note and packs it into a wearable device the size of a lipstick tube that can be worn as a necklace, a watch, a pin, or clipped onto a lapel or similar. […]
The company is pitching its new product to productivity obsessives: business people trying to network at meetings, salespeople chasing leads, or anyone looking to better manage the myriad meetings they have every day. There's a certain simplicity to NotePin. In contrast to the many promises some AI devices try to make, the product is primarily about taking notes: turn on the recorder and review key points later in a bulleted list. […]
It costs $169 and allows you to record up to 300 minutes of audio per month. To record more than that, you can subscribe to the Pro plan for $79 per year, which gives you 1,200 minutes of recording per month and additional features like labels to identify different speakers in your transcriptions.
Or, stick with the iPhone and save $169 and the hassle of charging and carrying an extra device.
As I've said before, an AI hardware device is like trying to invent the iPod after the iPhone has been released.
If you think you can do a better job than Apple (and for now you can), then sure, release your product as an app and see how well it works, but it just doesn't make sense to pack an app in a box and load a companion app onto your iPhone.
The smartest AI hardware investment right now is landfill.
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