The era of AI devices triggered by large models has arrived. A slew of high-profile AI gadgets are taking this new technology from science fiction to life, such as Humane's smartphone-style wearable AI Pin, the post-smartphone handheld Rabbit R1, and more.
Most of these devices are cool or gimmicky, but they are not practical, such as the AI Pin, which was unanimously complained by the media after the ban was lifted.
Recently, artificial intelligence startup Limitless released a new AI wearable device - Limitless Pendant (infinite pendant).
It's a simple, small, circular device that focuses on one core function: recording and processing conversations, rather than making a generic product like AI Pin, Rabbit. Focusing on the "meeting scenario", the device aims to provide a practical solution to help users better remember and understand the content of the meeting through audio recording and AI, and easily control the meeting.
The pricing for the Limitless Pendant is also very solid, at just $99. The company is currently taking pre-orders and expects to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2024.
It's also worth mentioning that the company has raised more than $33 million from top investors such as Sam Altman, First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and NEA.
So, what's so special about the Limitless Pendant, and will it be the first successful AI hardware?
01 "AI Jewelry" around the neck
Limitless Pendant 到底是什么呢？
The official definition of the Limitless company, "Limitless Pendant is a web app, a Mac app, a Windows app, and a wearable device. 」
This means that the Limitless Pendant consists of two parts:
The first part is the "hardware", which is the Pendant, which can be thought of as a microphone with AI capabilities.
The second part is "Software", an integrated application for capturing meeting audio, also known as Litmitless, which is available for macOS, Windows, and web apps, and is equipped with AI capabilities that can automate work and provide useful analysis summaries and suggested prompts.
It can be seen that this device is essentially a portable recording tool with AI capabilities.
It takes recordings of users (from a single meeting to a full day of conversations), sends them to a secure place in the cloud, transcribes them, and uses AI tools to automatically create notes and summaries that you can later search through the app to help you remember and understand.
Dan Siroker, co-founder and CEO of Limitless, said, "It's a way to enhance memory and access information that goes far beyond biological possibilities. 」
He also linked the concept to his own experience of losing his hearing in his twenties and turning to technology. "When I tried on hearing aids for the first time, it felt like I had gained a superpower. All we have to do now is augment our capabilities with artificial intelligence. 」
So, let's first talk about the "hardware" of the Limitless Pendant - the Pendant.
The AI wearable looks like a simple round clip, a clam shell, a pair of small wooden fish, or something used to seal a half-eaten bag of potato chips, and it feels both understated and new.
Is it my delusion, or does this thing look like a small pair of AirPods Max headphones?
A microphone array, magnets, and circuit boards are implanted at the front of the clip.
The microphone uses beamforming technology and AI capabilities to more clearly identify and record the person you're talking to instead of everyone else in the café, a magnet that attaches to the other half of the clip, a flexible buckle with magnets at both ends, making the pendant easy to wear as a pendant or clip onto clothing, and the other half of the clip is fitted with a circuit board.
The pendant can also be attached directly to the collar or other parts of the body |
The round surface of the Pendant is made of brushed aluminum, which is durable, weatherproof, and about the size of a watch, and is available in eight colors, including black, blue, green, gray, navy, pink, white, and yellow.
The Limitless Pendant comes in a variety of colors and doesn't look like an AI gadget|Source: Limitless Official Website
In addition, to sync data with its apps and cloud, it supports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and comes with a USB Type-C port for charging, with a battery life of up to 100 hours.
It's also important to mention that the Pendant's styling was designed by Ammunition, the industrial design company behind the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, whose design team was all about creating a product that was both easy to wear and loveable.
Robert Brunner, founder of Ammunition, said, "In the process of designing headphones for Beats, we learned the notion that wearability isn't just functional, it's also emotional, it's about how it feels on your body. "So we wanted the Pendant's design to feel more like jewelry, more sophisticated, less eye-catching, rather than that very tech-centric look, like the rectangular Ai Pin and the Rabbit device. 」
However, in order to alleviate people's "concerns" about a device recording everything all the time, it also has to be a little "visible".
Brunner also stressed, "You have to maintain a balance because people need to see it. They need to know it's on. They need to know that they are being recorded. 」
As a result, the team designed the LED light in the center of the Pendant that lights up as soon as the device starts recording, giving a subtle cue to let people know that they are being recorded.
It's also worth mentioning that the entire design process for Pendant took only eight weeks, which is surprisingly fast.
With the hardware out of the way, let's talk about the software.
In fact, Litmitless was developed from Rewind, the last AI product from Siroker.
Rewind, on the other hand, is an app that runs on your computer that can record your screen and other data, capture audio from your computer's microphone and speakers, help you remember every tab, every song, every meeting, and everything you do on your computer, as well as provide real-time notes, draft emails, and more.
Rewind is a personalized AI powered by everything you've seen, said, or heard|Source: Rewind Official Website
Now, the company is applying this productivity-enhancing AI to wearables, and the company's name has changed from Rewind to Limitless.
The Limitless Pendant, as part of the Limitless system, doesn't just run on a computer, but collects data from the cloud and the real world and makes it available to you on any device. As Litmitless' official website defines, "personalized AI based on what you see, hear, and say." 」
02 Focus on the work scene
Limitless AI was originally positioned as an AI meeting assistant designed to help users easily prepare for meetings.
Dan Siroker, co-founder of Limitless, explains, "Personally, I need to be in meetings continuously, and I want to be 100 percent focused on the people I'm meeting with. I can't take notes, track action items, prepare for the next meeting, or it will get in the way of communicating with the person in front of me. 」
There are 4 main features of this AI meeting assistant:
- The "Prepare Function" can provide background information about the meeting, and the source of information is your Gmail, Google Calendar, email, etc.
- "Recording function" to display the transcript in real time;
- "Notes function" to summarize the content of the conversation in real time;
- "Summary function" to summarize the content of the conversation.
There are 4 main functions of the meeting assistant: preparation, recording, note-taking, and summarization ||Source: Limitless official website
It is extremely simple to use.
You can join and record a meeting by simply tapping on your device, and you can tap on your device to "bookmark" a moment during a conversation. You can also tap and hold the device to ask Pendant questions, but it's unclear whether the device responds with a voice or in the app.
Because Limitless AI can take all the audio recorded by the Pendant and understand it, you can access it through the app and retrieve specific information at any time. For example, if you forget a deadline that someone mentioned in a meeting, then you can ask Pendant directly for an answer without even having to refer to the meeting minutes.
However, with almost all conferencing tools now infused with AI capabilities, and even more so transcription apps, what's so special about Limitless Pendant?
First of all, it's priced the same as Xiaomi's, at just $99, which is a good price for money.
It's small, lightweight, unique to wear, and optimized for real-world audio with AI, and can also stay with you for a long time, capturing the bits and pieces of your life, collecting your impromptu conversations, insights about life, and more, and is expected to become an "AI memory enhancer" for users, changing the way users process information.
Secondly, it is iteratively upgraded based on the long-standing and "experienced" Rewind.
Litmitless AI improves "compatibility" with almost all of your office software, such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack, and you can integrate it directly into your existing workflows and use with it, such as taking notes in Notion or capturing action items in Slack, without having to go to other apps entirely.
Although, at present, Litmitless AI can only respond to your needs, but in the future, it is likely to take the initiative to do some interesting things, just like ChatGPT, for example, when you receive a message, based on your past context, Litmitless AI will answer the message for you and give you the edited draft directly.
In this regard, Siroker, the founder of Litmitless, said, "Once the company gets the hang of this, its AI agent can really do things on your behalf, so that the company can understand everything about you, do everything for you, and everything will be incredible." But it's a more difficult problem to solve. 」
What's more, this device has a strong focus on privacy. Pendant has set up a "consent mode" so that the device will only record after the speaker has verbally consented. What's more, it can recognize consent or disagreement through contextual language, so users don't have to interrupt the conversation.
Not only that, but all the data collected by the device will be anonymized and securely stored in the "Confidential Cloud", a secure cloud server where data is encrypted and stored but cannot be accessed by anyone except the user, ensuring that everyone can participate with confidence.
Different from his competitor Limitless pays great attention to privacy ||Source: Limitless's official YouTube video
Currently, Limitless Pendant is available without a subscription, and the free tier provides 10 hours of AI features per month, as well as unlimited audio storage, but to use the full suite of AI features, you'll need to pay an additional $19 per month for the "Limitless Pro" service.
用户每月需额外支付 19 美元订购「Limitless Pro」｜来源：Litmitless 官网
According to Grand View Research, the global AI market size was estimated at USD 62.35 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.2% from 2021 to 2028. Companies like Limitless are capitalizing on this growth momentum with smart devices and software that capture and understand human interactions.
Although Limitless is currently only focused on "work scenarios", its ambitions do not stop there.
In the future, Limitless definitely wants to be a big-name AI gadget that is as powerful and powerful as anything from Meta, Rabbit, or Humane.
It's just that the company's development strategy is more "pragmatic", first choosing a problem that AI can solve, solving it, and then choosing another, rather than using science fiction imagination as a guide. As Siroker, the company's founder, explains, "We just want to do a few things really well, not everything. 」
"Meeting Prep" may not be the most exciting AI story, but it's an effective story and a good start!
*头图来源：Limitless官网
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