REVIEW – These days, it feels like every product is trying to squeeze in some form of artificial intelligence, whether it’s truly useful or just a flashy add-on. Just like how some people never touch the bottle opener on their multi-tool, AI can sometimes feel like a feature you didn’t ask for and might not use. That brings us to the PLAUD NotePin, a tiny voice recorder that promises to integrate AI in a way that’s actually practical. But does it deliver, or is it just another “bottle opener” feature? Let’s find out.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $169.00
Where to buy: PLAUD.AI and Amazon
What is it?
The PLAUD NotePin is a wearable voice recorder that uses AI to summarize, identify voices, and more. It’s a smaller version of the PLAUD Note that I reviewed a couple of years ago.
What’s included?
1 x NotePin Device
1 x Magnetic Pin
1 x Clip
1 x Lanyard
1 x Wristband
1 x Charging Dock
1 x USB-C Charging Cable
1 x Quick Start Guide
Tech specs
Dimensions: 51*21*11 mm
Weight: 16.6g (Without Magnetic Pin)
Microphone: 2MEMS
Battery: 270mAh
Storage: 64GB
Transcribes 112+ languages
20hrs continuous recording
40 days standby
Apple FindMy compatible
Design and features
The PLAUD NotePin is a small, metal, pill-shaped device that has a sleek, futuristic look. The NotePin is available in grey (shown here), silver, and purple. The top surface has a small PLAUD logo at the top and a status LED at the bottom.
The top edge has an eyelet for the included lanyard-style necklace.
The NotePin has an interesting two-piece design. Its back cover attaches via magnets and detaches for charging and connecting the included clip.
The metal clip allows you to clip the PLAUD NotePin to your shirt, jacket, etc. It also comes with a wrist strap so you can wear it like a watch.
The NotePin is small, but the internal battery has enough power to record for up to 20 hours. To charge, you just place it in the included plastic dock which you connect to your computer with a USB-C cable.
Using the PLAUD NotePin
The NotePin does not have any physical buttons, so to start and stop a recording, you have to press and hold between the two LEDs on the top of the recorder. You’ll then feel a vibration and the top LED will glow red while it’s recording.
PLAUD app
Audio recording can be done with just the NotePin device, but transcription, summarization, and other AI features require the PLAUD app or PLAUD Web app. I installed the app on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. The app interface is not difficult to navigate. The main screen shows a list of the recordings along with the date and length. You can also initiate a recording through the app (the + button) instead of tapping and holding the device itself.
While testing the NotePin, I figured out that I’m probably not the right demographic for this gadget since I no longer work in a corporate setting with a lot of meetings. So I had planned to test the NotePin as a pseudo life logger gadget where I would let it record my whole day so that I could then summarize the main events into my journal.
I “pinned” the PLAUD NotePin on the front of my sweater at the beginning of the day, started a recording, and wore it for about 5 hours during which I watched several YouTube videos, talked to one of the Gadgeteer writers several times with the Marco app, had a conversation with my partner while driving back and forth to lunch, etc. Five hours later, I stopped the recording, went into the app, and had it download the audio file from the NotePin to my phone. It has to do this so that it can then perform AI actions like summarizing, transcribing, etc. Copying an almost 5 hour file from the NotePin to my iPhone was slow, even when I used the Fast Transfer option which required me to connect the iPhone to the NotePin’s built-in WiFi SSD. For this reason, I don’t think the NotePin works well as a life logger gadget because I think it’s easier to work with smaller recordings.
There are different ways to view each recording. Overview takes all the key points and lists them out along with a short description. You can then click on the event to generate its own recording that you can read, listen to, and ask questions with the AI feature. When you generate an event, it has to upload the clip to PLAUD where it generates the transcription and summary. This can take a few minutes, even for short clips. I wish it could do all that work directly on the phone…
For transcriptions, it can detect different voices and allow you to label them. However, it can only do that when the original recording is less than 3 hours long. This is a disappointment.
The app also provides you with a mind map type of layout for each recording.
The most interesting feature of the app is the Ask AI feature, which you can use to ask questions about specific recordings. The app even helps you out with some suggestions of questions that you might have, but it also allows you to enter your own questions. The answers that it provided when I asked questions were really pretty impressive. I can see how this could be useful for someone who is always talking to others about ideas and problems. You could ask questions like “what was that potential solution that I brainstormed about my problem with the OBSBOT camera that I was reviewing?” and it would come back with the info I requested.
Unfortunately, the app isn’t smart enough to consolidate information from recordings that talk about the same topic. For example, you can’t create a voice recording with a shopping list and then later in the day add more entries to that same summary/transcription to easily create one shopping list.
Another thing missing from the PLAUD NotePin that was available with the PLAUD Note is the ability to record both sides of a phone call. 🙁
But how much do these AI features cost?
That’s the issue… After you buy the PLAUD NotePin for $169, you get a free starter subscription that allows you to have up to 300 minutes of transcriptions per month, but you don’t get the snazzy Ask AI feature with that freebie plan. 🙁
You have opt-in with the Pro or Unlimited plan if you want to be able to ask questions about your recordings, which is really the best part of the PLAUD NotePin. You do get a 7 day free trial to test the Ask AI feature. But after that, you need to pay $6.60 – $19.99 per month depending on the number of minutes that you think you’ll need. The cheaper plan allows for 1200 minutes / 20 hours, and the $19.99 plan is unlimited minutes. I really think that PLAUD should include the Ask AI feature in the starter plan, too.
Final thoughts
The PLAUD NotePin is a cool little gadget for the right person. It can benefit people who attend a lot of meetings both in person or via Zoom or even students who attend lectures. However, for someone like me who doesn’t have many meetings or interactions with people via voice, I don’t see the PLAUD NotePin offering me much more than using my phone which can already capture a voice recording and automatically transcribe it to text. I can then upload that transcribed text to ChatGPT or Perplexity to generate a summary and ask questions.
I think the PLAUD NotePin shows promise, but I don’t know how it’s going to stand the test of time when our phones can already do many of the same tasks without adding an additional monthly subscription to our budget. What about you? Would you use the NotePin on a daily basis?
What I like about the PLAUD NotePin
- Great audio quality
- The transcription feature is very good
- Ask AI feature is really cool
- Excellent battery life
- Various ways to wear it
What needs to be improved?
- Include the Ask AI feature with the free plan
- Speed up file upload from device to phone
- Doesn’t have the phone call recording capability that the PLAUD Note has
- Needs to be smart enough to tack new notes to existing notes of the same topic
Price: $169.00
Where to buy: PLAUD.AI and Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by PLAUD. They did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
Check out these other reviews!
- From paper to pixels – How to digitize your handwritten journals with AI (for free!)
- PLAUD NOTE review – ChatGPT empowered AI voice recorder
- TileRec voice-activated digital voice recorder review
- iFLYTEK Smart Recorder review – Voice transcription without the internet or apps
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