A new wave of AI-powered gadgets is entering the market with the goal of integrating artificial intelligence into our daily lives like never before. These devices include necklaces, rings, wristbands, and other portable items. Some serve as productivity tools, while others claim to act as friendly companions that listen to your everyday thoughts. Even OpenAI is reportedly working on a compact AI companion device.
Below is a list of some of the most notable devices currently available.
Bee is an affordable pendant priced at forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. It can be clipped to your clothing or worn like a fitness band. This device records everything it hears and learns your routines and preferences to create reminders and notes for you. It includes a mute button for privacy. A companion app, currently available only on iOS, is included with a nineteen-dollar monthly subscription. The app lets you interact with Bee directly, ask it questions, and get key takeaways from your day along with chronological transcripts of your conversations. Amazon acquired the wearables startup in July.
Friend is one of the most hyped entrants in the personal AI device market. This one-hundred-twenty-nine-dollar white pendant hangs around your neck and functions as an emotional support companion. It recognizes your tone and mood, allowing you to chat with it as if it were a friend. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth, constantly listens, and can send you proactive messages, such as wishing you good luck before an interview. However, the company has faced criticism, including a recent backlash against its subway ad campaign in New York City where people vandalized the ads with messages like “surveillance capitalism.”
Formerly known as Rewind, Limitless is another conversation-recording pendant priced at ninety-nine dollars. This device continuously listens, transcribing meetings, calls, and conversations with consent into searchable and summarized knowledge. It is ideal for professionals like journalists who need to recall important discussions. The companion app includes ten hours of AI features per month, such as transcription and summaries, with an option to unlock unlimited features for twenty-nine dollars per month.
Priced at eighty-nine dollars, Omi is a device that can answer your questions, summarize your conversations, create to-do lists, and help schedule meetings. Omi is constantly listening and running your conversations through ChatGPT, allowing it to remember context about you and offer personalized advice. It can be worn as a necklace, and it can also be attached to the side of your head with medical tape where it can detect when you are speaking to it.
At one hundred fifty-nine dollars, Plaud’s NotePin is one of the pricier options. Its built-in AI transcription and summarization features make it a valuable tool for lawyers, journalists, and students attending meetings or lectures. This tiny wearable voice recorder can be worn on your wrist or attached magnetically to your clothing. Recordings are saved in real-time on your phone, eliminating the hassle of manual note-taking. The device includes three hundred free monthly transcription minutes, but with an eight-dollar and thirty-three-cent per month Pro plan, you upgrade your transcription time to one thousand two hundred minutes. This year, the company is preparing to launch a one-hundred-seventy-nine-dollar ultra-thin note-taking device called the Plaud Note Pro, which is now available for preorder.
Rabbit R1 is another AI gadget that has quickly become a topic of interest in the tech world, despite facing some challenges during its initial launch. This small, retro-styled handheld device features a touchscreen and a rotating camera, with a price of one hundred ninety-nine dollars. The device is designed to be phone-adjacent, allowing you to perform tasks like booking flights, ordering meals, and controlling apps without needing to pull out your phone each time. Following a crucial software update that fixed previous performance issues, the Rabbit R1 now has expanded AI features. For instance, it introduces a feature called Creations that allows you to build your own tools and even games.