The Problem
I want to jot down a thought and I want to do it quickly. It’s a reminder for something I need to do, a new idea for a project that I want to work on, or a solution to a problem that randomly occurred to me.
A pen and paper sounds nice but that requires two hands and I need to have those items on me.
What about an iPhone or Apple Watch? Those devices are powerful, but they’re also locked down and error-prone. It’s almost impossible to consistently save a thought into either device. This is insane.
On the Apple Watch, I’ll raise my wrist and try talking to it. About 10 to 15% of the time, it won’t wake up. When it does, I have to talk in a specific way. If I pause to gather my thoughts, it thinks I’m done talking and cuts me off. Sometimes, it mishears me and as a result, enters the wrong information or does the wrong task.
On the iPhone, I set up a complex Shortcut that successfully captures audio, transcribes it, and uses on-device AI models to do something useful. It’s pretty cool, until I tried to use it. Apple locks down the microphone for security purposes, meaning you can’t access it unless the phone is unlocked. Imagine my frustration when, on a long road trip, I kept having ideas that I wanted to save but couldn’t. I would raise my phone, push the action button to launch my awesome new shortcut. Because I was looking at the road and not my phone, it wouldn’t unlock and wouldn’t run the shortcut.
My final attempt to get something working was to use Apple’s Voice Memos. It has “special” privileges that allow it to access the microphone when the phone is locked. I finally cracked it, I thought. Nope, all the data gets locked inside of the app. There’s no programmatic way to get it out or do anything useful with it.
The Solution
What if I had a device with a button I could push that would reliably record my thoughts and automatically send them where I want? Then I could have an LLM analyze them and make them useful. This device exists. It’s called the Plaud Note.
I’ve seen other AI devices that constantly record everything you do in an attempt to become your second brain. They feel gross to me. No one wants something constantly recording everything. They also look dumb. Who wants to wear a weird necklace or pin on their shirt?
This is not that. This fits discreetly in your pocket, and works like the traditional voice recorders journalists used. The cool part is that it comes with smart modern features. Mainly, it will automatically transcribe your audio and send it through Zapier to anywhere you want. Oh and it can be operated with one hand, weighs nothing, and almost never has to be recharged.
The Device
- Made of aluminum and glass
- OLED screen for recording and sync status
- Credit card sized
- Weighs 1.06 oz
- Battery lasts months
- Holds tons of recordings
- Connects via Bluetooth Low Energy and auto-transfers to phone when in range
- Has a haptic record button similar to the MacBook trackpad that gives vibration feedback when pressed
- Costs $189 but they have cheaper models
- Comes with 300 minutes a month of AI processing. There are subscriptions available if you need more but they’re only necessary if you are consistently recording long form audio like meetings or interviews.
The Workflow
The companion app can do AI summaries and other processing but I skip that and pass raw transcripts downstream. Zapier is the hub for this. The free plan is limited but I manage to get by on it. You can do all kinds of things from here but I only do two:
- Save all transcripts to my notes folder in Dropbox
- If a transcript has the phrase “remind me”, send it to my own API for natural language processing
Custom API for natural language processing, you say? I know that sounds complicated, but I told Claude I wanted to turn transcripts into tasks and send them to TickTick and it made the thing in a few minutes. It blows my mind what’s possible today. The API lives for free on a Netlify server. The only cost is a few pennies a month for Claude Haiku to digest the transcripts.
Honorable Mention: The Pebble Ring
While Plaud is cool, the thing that I’m really excited about is the Pebble Index. The only reason I bought the Plaud in the first place was because the Pebble isn’t shipping yet and I was too excited to wait for my pre-order.
What’s so great about the Pebble Index? It has these added benefits:
- Lives on your finger so you don’t have to dig a device in and out of your pocket
- It’s waterproof — swim, shower, rain, whatever
- It never needs charging. I’m going to say that again, it never needs charging! This battery lasts two years. At the end of that period, you send it back for recycling.
- It only costs $75. That’s not nothing, but when comparing it to a smartwatch that can cost hundreds of dollars and doesn’t work 100% of the time, it’s amazing.
- No subscription
- It’s open source. You can hack it to do other cool stuff like send its data to your own app.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing, and I’ll report back once I have it.
How is this impacting me?
It sounds hyperbolic, but I feel free and focused. I don’t need my phone. I don’t need a flaky AI assistant or a network connection. No apps or notifications distracting me. I can go on a walk in the woods or lay in the grass at the park. If an idea arises, as they often do in places like these, I can effortlessly talk through it. When I get back to my computer, the next steps are waiting.
A few weeks ago I was yelling at my Apple Watch while it ignored me. Now I press one button, talk, and move on with my day. That’s it. That’s magic.