Humane’s AI Pin and Rabbit R1 were exciting when they were announced, but they suffered from bad reviews, press coverage, and didn’t perform as expected. It wasn’t a very good look for an AI-powered device that was supposed to change our lives forever.
However, all is not lost for those looking for a way to strap a dedicated AI device to themselves. Please say hello to Plaud NotePin. It’s a small voice recorder (about the size of a fitness tracker) that lets you record voice notes and conversations, and uses ChatGPT to transcribe them into various documents. It’s the successor to the well-received Plaud Note, which the company released last year, and may be the first AI gadget you’ll ever get to use.
proud note pin
NotePin, Plaud’s portable and easy-to-use voice recorder, is a great example of how a dedicated AI gadget can be useful on a daily basis. Journalists, students, lawyers, and anyone who needs to easily and intelligently record and summarize conversations should check out NotePin.
- easy to use
- do what one claims to do
- The most useful features are included in the price
- Unintentional recordings can be easily made
- Many features are already available on most smartphones
- expensive
Price, availability and specs
A small gadget like this leaves a lot to be desired
First off, the biggest drawback to NotePin is the price. The Plaud NotePin costs $169, which seems like a good price for a device that’s smaller than the Note and literally functions as a voice recorder. Thankfully, all the AI features and transcription features that maximize NotePin’s potential are included for free, at least for now. The only limitation is the amount of transcriptions you can perform per month.
Anyone who purchases NotePin gets up to 5 hours (300 minutes) of transcription each month and access to about 12 Plaud templates. More on this later. For an additional $7 per month, you get up to 20 hours (1,200 minutes) of transcription per month and access to more templates, including the ability to create your own templates.
specification
- storage
- 64GB
- size
- 51×21×11mm
- weight
- 25g
- microphone
- 2 MEMS
- color
- Gray | Lunar Silver | Sunset Purple
What’s good about Plaud NotePin?
it does what it claims to do
Perhaps the greatest praise I can give NotePin is that it actually does what it claims to do. Record audio conversations with crystal clarity and transcribe them into the specified template.
When you upload a file to your phone, you can choose one of 12 templates (20 for paid users) that automatically insert your text. Choose from templates for meeting notes, lectures, interviews, and more. Paid users can also create custom templates. Templates are essentially just pre-written prompts that Plaud plugs into ChatGPT, but at least it saves you some steps.
Every time you transcribe a file, you also automatically get a mind map overview of the recording. This will help you quickly reference the content of the talk. You can also edit the transcription, name the speaker (which updates automatically throughout the text), and organize it into folders. You can also trim audio files from your phone in case they are recorded unnecessarily.
If you can’t remember, you can also search the transcript to find what someone said about it when they were talking about something else. Plaud also continues to update its servers with the latest versions of ChatGPT and Claude (4o and 3.5, respectively, at the time of writing). All of these features are also available through the web app, so you’re not limited to your phone.
I also like the design. The NotePin is about the same size as fitness trackers like the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 and has a magnet on the back so you can attach it to your shirt (very similar to the Humane AI Pin). It also comes with a clip to attach it to your jacket or bag. Necklace attachments, and my personal favorite, are wristbands. When you want to record, just press the middle once and a small tactile vibration will let you know that recording is in progress. Press twice to stop.
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Some things never change
Plaud claims that the NotePin has up to 40 days of standby time and 20 hours of continuous recording. In my testing, I found it to be mostly accurate, even if it took an hour or two. Charging is done via a proprietary magnetic charger and USB-C cable.
After using it for a few weeks, I found it to be very suitable. The recordings were clear, the transcriptions were accurate most of the time, and the summaries were helpful. Several times the recordings and transcripts included music in the background, but the summary was wise enough to omit it.
I was impressed with how well it worked. Plaud fixes most of the problems that came with the Note, such as inaccurate transcription, and seems to have put together a pretty convincing case, given the use case for the dedicated AI gadget.
What’s not good about Plaud NotePin?
almost too easy to use
As long as humans continue to create products, nothing will be perfect. The simplicity of pressing a single button to start recording means it’s very easy to accumulate random recordings. In fact, at one point over the past few days when I was only recording for an hour or two, the NotePin stopped working completely. When I charged it and connected it to my phone, I discovered that it had been recording for 10 hours unintentionally. Somehow, while I was wearing it, I pressed the button and it started recording. Fortunately, this issue can be easily fixed with a software update. For example, you may be able to customize the number of presses required to trigger recording.
NotePin comes with 64 GB of storage, but you also have the option to save your files to Plaud’s cloud. The company claims that your data is safe because it’s end-to-end encrypted, but you’ll have to decide whether to trust your recordings to a little-known company with no track record.
My biggest issue with the NotePin, which is true of almost all connected devices these days, is the fact that it’s very discreet. As I mentioned earlier, when you wear it on your wrist, it literally looks like any other fitness tracker. It is very easy to record sensitive conversations as even your most attentive friends may not notice.
Again, it’s not hard to record someone doing something these days, but it’s amazing how easy it is for anyone to record a conversation without being any smarter than them. I was shocked.
Should I buy it?
This could be and is an app
Overall, the Plaud NotePin is a great device. This is a great example of how dedicated AI devices can be truly useful for journalists, students, doctors, and more. It’s a bit pricey, but it includes all the useful AI features at no extra charge, which is more than you can say about most things these days.
In fact, the only reason I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it is the fact that most of these features are already available on most major smartphones. Samsung has rolled out very similar features in most of its recent Galaxy flagships, and Apple plans to bring them to the iPhone later this year. And of course, Google has built the entire Pixel 9 series around AI features, many of which are very similar to what Plaud offers. If you’re using another phone, you can still basically do everything NotePin does, with an extra step or two.
But if you’re looking for the convenience of having a dedicated AI recording gadget at your fingertips, NotePin is for you.
proud note pin
There’s a lot to like about Plaud NotePin. It’s very easy to use, provides accurate transcriptions and helpful summaries, and doesn’t require a subscription. However, it can be difficult to find examples of use.
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