# wearable.tools

A briefing on wearable capture devices. The journal is the homepage; the scored ranking of
shipping hardware lives at /ranking.
Positions are computed from published per-axis scores, not written by hand. Every
specification is cited on the device page; unpublished or irreconcilable figures are omitted,
not guessed. Scores follow a published method, are dated from the scoring pass (not the build
time), and are shown with the reasoning behind them, so they can be checked. Independent,
objective ranking — a reference, not a vendor marketing site.
See /methodology and /about.

## Axis leaders (scores current as of 2026-09-16)

A device can lead an axis without leading the weighted total. Among shipping devices:

- Capture: Plaud Note Pro leads at 9.5/10
- Intelligence: Vocci Ring leads at 8.5/10
- Privacy: Index 01 leads at 9.5/10
- Battery: Bee Pioneer Edition leads at 10.0/10
- Wearability: Vocci Ring leads at 9.5/10
- Look: Vocci Ring leads at 9.5/10
- Value: Bee Pioneer Edition leads at 9.5/10

Published weight, lightest first: Index 01 4.7 g; Vocci Ring 5 g; Plaud NotePin 16.6 g; Fieldy 3 17 g; Plaud Note 30 g; Plaud Note Pro 30 g; Halliday G2 49 g. Devices that do not publish a weight are omitted.

Charging case: Vocci Ring is the ranked device that ships with one.

## Ranking

Weighted across 7 axes: Capture 23%, Intelligence 17%, Privacy 16%, Battery 14%, Wearability 12%, Look 7%, Value 11%.
Only shipping devices are ranked. Ties break on capture, then privacy, then lower year-one cost, then slug.

1. [Plaud Note Pro](https://wearable.tools/hardware/plaud-note-pro) — 7.6/10, $189, Starter 300 min, or Pro $99.99/yr, recorder. Four beamforming microphones and a screen that shows what it is doing make the Plaud Note Pro the best pure capture device here, if you accept carrying a card.
2. [Vocci Ring](https://wearable.tools/hardware/vocci-ring) — 7.4/10, $249, Starter 300 min, or Plus $15.99/mo, ring. The Vocci Ring is the only device here whose agent lives on the finger — long-press, one hand — at the cost of a single microphone on a moving hand.
3. [Bee Pioneer Edition](https://wearable.tools/hardware/bee-pioneer) — 7.2/10, $49.99, No plan, pin. Fifty dollars and seven days of battery make the Bee Pioneer the easiest recommendation here, provided you own an iPhone and never need to hear a recording back.
4. [Plaud Note](https://wearable.tools/hardware/plaud-note) — 7.1/10, $159, Starter 300 min, or Pro $99.99/yr, recorder. The Plaud Note is the value pick of this ranking — thirty hours of recording, phone-call capture and Plaud's mature software, at $159 plus Plaud Pro.
5. [Halliday G2](https://wearable.tools/hardware/halliday-g2) — 6.6/10, $599, Starter 120 min, or Basic $9.90/mo, glasses. Halliday G2 is camera-free meeting glasses with a four-mic array and a display recap, held back by a 2 m pickup claim, no recording light, and $599 frames.
6. [Plaud NotePin](https://wearable.tools/hardware/plaud-notepin) — 6.6/10, $159, Starter 300 min, or Pro $99.99/yr, pin. The Plaud NotePin puts Plaud's software on something you can actually wear four different ways, but charges Plaud Note money for weaker hardware.
7. [Fieldy 3](https://wearable.tools/hardware/fieldy) — 6.2/10, $129, 150 min included, or Unlimited $15.99/mo billed yearly, pendant. Fieldy 3 is a $129 pendant-or-watch that will transcribe a session you start, then throw the audio away — useful, and not a meeting-table microphone.
8. [Omi](https://wearable.tools/hardware/omi) — 5.8/10, $179, On-phone free, or $19/mo, pendant. Omi is the only device here you can run without touching anyone's cloud, and the only one whose schematics you can download — but it lasts ten hours and is out of stock.
9. [Index 01](https://wearable.tools/hardware/pebble-index-01) — 5.6/10, $75, No plan, ring. The Index 01 runs speech recognition and its language model entirely on your phone for $75, and is the only device here that needs no cloud at all — but it cannot record a room.
10. [Friend](https://wearable.tools/hardware/friend) — 4.8/10, $249, 30-day memory, or $9.99/mo, pendant. Friend is an always-listening companion necklace that now talks back, not a capture tool, and it only hears the room while an iPhone is paired.

## Briefing

- [Fieldy 3 is the other necklace you can actually buy](https://wearable.tools/blog/fieldy-3-is-the-other-necklace) — news, 2026-09-16. Fieldy 3 is on sale at $129 as a pendant or a watch. It transcribes sessions you start, includes 150 minutes a month, and ships worldwide.
- [Halliday G2 starts shipping camera-free meeting glasses](https://wearable.tools/blog/halliday-g2-starts-shipping) — news, 2026-09-16. Halliday G2 non-prescription pairs began shipping on 15 September 2026. Four mics, a 2 m table claim, no recording light, $599.
- [A spec sheet is a claim with a date on it](https://wearable.tools/blog/manufacturers-contradict-their-own-specs) — analysis, 2026-09-16. Four manufacturers in this ranking contradict their own published specifications, by up to sixteen times, and a fifth's website no longer resolves at all.
- [A long press is not its own axis](https://wearable.tools/blog/operability-is-not-wearability) — analysis, 2026-09-16. One-hand invoke is wearability and intelligence, not a third published crown. Grams decide whether you keep it on; a hold on the finger is how you use it.
- [Look is not wearability](https://wearable.tools/blog/look-is-not-wearability) — analysis, 2026-09-15. Grams and clips decide whether you keep a device on. Silhouette and materials decide whether a room reads jewellery or a gadget. Those are different failures.
- [How the ranking turns seven scores into an order](https://wearable.tools/blog/how-the-ranking-is-scored) — analysis, 2026-09-08. Each axis is 0–10 in half points, with a published note. The total is arithmetic. Ties go to capture, then privacy, then year-one cost.
- [Three hundred minutes is a trial, not the working plan](https://wearable.tools/blog/three-hundred-minutes-is-a-trial) — analysis, 2026-08-26. Plaud and Vocci both ship a 300-minute starter cap. Value scored against that cap is a landing-page number. The templates live on Pro and Plus.
- [Sandbar’s Stream Ring has sold out batches without shipping](https://wearable.tools/blog/sandbar-batches-sold-out-unshipped) — news, 2026-08-25. By late August 2026 Sandbar had sold out four Stream Ring batches. Summer became fall, then a mid-December fifth batch, still without a published weight.
- [A hand is a bad microphone stand](https://wearable.tools/blog/rings-make-poor-microphone-stands) — analysis, 2026-08-20. Vocci claims 5 m from one MEMS capsule. Plaud claims 5 m from four on a table. The integers match. The kinematics do not. Rings gesture, pocket, and wash.
- [Ring, pin, card and pendant are four jobs](https://wearable.tools/blog/ring-pin-card-pendant) — comparison, 2026-08-12. A titanium band disappears. A card hears a table. A pendant logs a day. Treating form factor as trim on one “AI wearable” is how this aisle stays confused.
- [The Vocci Ring is on sale as a tap-to-record titanium band](https://wearable.tools/blog/vocci-ring-goes-on-sale) — news, 2026-08-04. Vocci opened U.S. public purchase on 4 August 2026. The shipping claim is a 3–5 g ring, eight hours, a case, and a double-tap — not always-on capture.
- [Cloud speech is the default. On-device is the exception.](https://wearable.tools/blog/cloud-asr-versus-on-device) — analysis, 2026-07-30. Most of this aisle sends audio to a vendor model. Omi can stay on the phone. Pebble’s Index 01 works in airplane mode. Those are different products.
- [Friend starts selling a speaker pendant at $249](https://wearable.tools/blog/friend-pendant-adds-a-speaker) — news, 2026-07-30. On 30 July 2026 Friend listed a speaker pendant at $249. It still needs a paired iPhone, and memories fade after 30 days unless you pay $9.99 a month.
- [The Verge’s ring demo is Stream’s whisper versus Index’s button](https://wearable.tools/blog/verge-on-stream-and-index-rings) — news, 2026-07-28. On 28 July 2026 The Verge compared Sandbar’s still-unshipped Stream Ring with Pebble’s Index 01. Whisper dictation into any text field is the Stream claim.
- [Pebble’s Index 01 starts shipping this week](https://wearable.tools/blog/pebble-index-01-begins-shipping) — news, 2026-07-27. Pebble’s 24 July 2026 note says the first Index 01 orders ship this week. It is still a 4.7 g dictation ring with a 5–20 cm microphone, not a meeting recorder.
- [Preorders do not get a rank](https://wearable.tools/blog/only-shipping-devices-are-ranked) — analysis, 2026-07-16. Sandbar has sold out batches of the Stream Ring without a customer unit. A first-place device you cannot buy is a press list. Shipping is the gate.
- [Twelve hours is not always a charge cycle](https://wearable.tools/blog/battery-hours-are-not-a-unit) — analysis, 2026-07-09. Pebble’s Index 01 quotes 12–15 hours for the life of a sealed cell. Plaud’s 50 hours is a mode. Bee’s 160 is a week. The unit looks the same in a table.
- [Always-on capture is a battery product](https://wearable.tools/blog/battery-versus-always-on) — analysis, 2026-06-18. Bee’s week-long cell exists because the Pioneer never stops. Plaud’s 30 hours exist because the card does. Comparing those integers without the verb misleads.
- [Capture is weighted first because the rest is optional](https://wearable.tools/blog/capture-comes-first) — analysis, 2026-05-06. Intelligence, privacy and battery only matter if the far end of the table is on the recording. That is why capture is 23 percent, not another lifestyle axis.
- [“Not published” is a specification](https://wearable.tools/blog/not-published-is-a-spec) — analysis, 2026-04-08. Sandbar, Limitless and Bee omit weight, hours or mic count. Empty fields here are not unfinished pages. They are the manufacturer declining to be checked.
- [Ray-Ban Meta glasses are out of scope, on purpose](https://wearable.tools/blog/why-meta-glasses-are-not-ranked) — analysis, 2026-03-04. Meta’s glasses are a camera, a speaker and an assistant in a frame. This ranking is for devices whose job is capturing speech. Those are different products.
- [The price on the box is not the price of a year](https://wearable.tools/blog/year-one-cost-is-the-price) — analysis, 2026-02-11. Plaud sells hardware next to a 300-minute starter cap. Year-one cost is purchase plus the plan the templates actually require, not the landing-page monthly.
- [Discontinued hardware stays listed so the next one can be scored](https://wearable.tools/blog/why-discontinued-devices-remain) — analysis, 2026-01-21. The AI Pin and the Limitless Pendant cannot be bought. Their pages remain because battery claims, LEDs and remote bricks are still the comparison set.
- [Amazon’s Bee note says the capture LED is now green](https://wearable.tools/blog/bee-capture-led-turns-green) — news, 2026-01-12. Amazon’s January 2026 Bee brief lists Actions, Daily Insights and a green LED while capturing. That reverses the CES 2025 behaviour WIRED wore.
- [CES 2026 is full of rings that want to replace the card](https://wearable.tools/blog/vocci-ring-shown-at-ces) — news, 2026-01-06. Engadget’s CES 2026 notes put the Vocci Ring in the whisper-and-meeting-ring wave. Claimed specs are eight hours, a 5 m pickup and a double-tap.
- [Pebble’s Index 01 is a $75 ring that will not record a room](https://wearable.tools/blog/pebble-announces-the-index-01) — news, 2025-12-09. On 9 December 2025 Pebble opened Index 01 preorders at $75, shipping March 2026. On-device speech is the point; the 5–20 cm mic range is the limit.
- [Meta acquires Limitless and kills Pendant sales the same day](https://wearable.tools/blog/meta-buys-limitless-stops-sales) — news, 2025-12-05. On 5 December 2025 Limitless joined Meta and stopped selling the Pendant. Remaining owners get the Unlimited plan free; support is promised through 2026.
- [The Note Pro is a microphone upgrade, not a new product](https://wearable.tools/blog/plaud-note-versus-note-pro) — comparison, 2025-11-12. Four MEMS mics and a screen are why the Pro exists. The rest is the Note: a card, a cloud, 300 starter minutes, and a 50-hour claim that needs a mode.
- [Sandbar opens Stream Ring preorders at $249](https://wearable.tools/blog/sandbar-opens-stream-ring-preorders) — news, 2025-11-05. The Verge reported Sandbar’s Stream Ring on 5 November 2025: a whisper-dictation ring, U.S. only, summer 2026 shipping, from former CTRL-labs people.
- [The Plaud Note Pro is a shipping product](https://wearable.tools/blog/plaud-note-pro-starts-shipping) — news, 2025-10-02. Plaud’s four-microphone card is listed as shipping in October 2025. Enhance mode is 30 hours at 5 m; 50 hours is Endurance at 3 m.
- [Always-on and tap-to-record are not the same category](https://wearable.tools/blog/tap-versus-always-on) — comparison, 2025-09-17. Bee and Limitless listen until you stop them. Plaud and Humane listened when told. Battery, consent and missed conversations all follow from that switch.
- [Plaud’s Note Pro adds four microphones and a screen](https://wearable.tools/blog/plaud-announces-note-pro) — news, 2025-08-27. Plaud opened Note Pro preorders on 27 August 2025 at $179, shipping in October. Four microphones are the news; the 50-hour battery claim needs its mode.
- [Amazon is buying Bee, the $50 always-on wearable](https://wearable.tools/blog/amazon-acquires-bee) — news, 2025-07-22. Amazon confirmed it is acquiring Bee on 22 July 2025. The Pioneer stays $49.99; the question is whether a week of battery still ships with a recording light.
- [Open hardware is the only privacy claim you can rebuild](https://wearable.tools/blog/open-source-is-the-privacy-claim) — analysis, 2025-06-11. Omi publishes Gerbers, an 88-part BOM and a path that never touches Based Hardware’s cloud. That is a different fact from a policy PDF.
- [The recording light is the product](https://wearable.tools/blog/the-recording-light-is-the-product) — analysis, 2025-05-14. Limitless made the LED undimmable on purpose. Bee, at CES, left capture dark to save battery. A microphone without a visible state is a different object.
- [A wearable that needs a cloud can be switched off remotely](https://wearable.tools/blog/when-the-vendor-disappears) — analysis, 2025-03-18. Humane bricked every remaining AI Pin on 28 February 2025. The Trust Light was hardware. The product was still a login, and logins expire.
- [Every remaining AI Pin stopped working at noon Pacific](https://wearable.tools/blog/humane-bricks-every-ai-pin) — news, 2025-02-28. On 28 February 2025 at 12pm PST Humane bricked remaining AI Pins and deleted leftover user data. The privacy chip did not survive the cloud being switched off.
- [HP buys Humane’s assets for $116 million. The Pin is over.](https://wearable.tools/blog/hp-buys-humane-assets) — news, 2025-02-18. HP’s $116 million asset deal was reported on 18 February 2025. Humane named 28 February as the day remaining Pins lose cloud service.
- [Omi’s CES pitch is three days. Its hardware is an open pendant.](https://wearable.tools/blog/omi-shown-at-ces-as-open-hardware) — news, 2025-01-09. Based Hardware showed Omi at CES 2025 as an $89 pendant, consumer units in Q2. WIRED printed a three-day battery. Open source is the claim to check.
- [WIRED wears Bee at CES and cannot see when it is recording](https://wearable.tools/blog/wired-on-bee-and-omi-at-ces) — news, 2025-01-08. WIRED’s CES 2025 wear of the Bee Pioneer found a red mute LED and no light while capturing. Bee blamed the seven-day battery. That is a consent design.
- [Bee’s Pioneer Edition is $49.99 and claims a week per charge](https://wearable.tools/blog/bee-pioneer-sells-for-fifty) — news, 2024-12-31. Bee put a clip-and-wristband microphone on sale at $49.99 with a 160-hour battery claim. Continuous capture at that price is a different category math.
- [Humane recalls the AI Pin Charge Case over a fire hazard](https://wearable.tools/blog/humane-recalls-the-charge-case) — news, 2024-10-31. The CPSC posted a 31 October 2024 recall of about 10,500 Humane Charge Cases after a lithium cell overheated. The Pin itself is not in the recall.
- [Humane cuts the AI Pin from $699 to $499](https://wearable.tools/blog/humane-cuts-ai-pin-to-499) — news, 2024-10-23. Six months after a brutal launch, Humane dropped the AI Pin to $499. The $24 monthly plan did not move, so year-one cost is still the story.
- [Limitless delivers the first Pendant](https://wearable.tools/blog/limitless-pendant-starts-shipping) — news, 2024-09-06. CEO Dan Siroker said the first Limitless Pendant was delivered on 6 September 2024. August was the advertised window, not the day units shipped.
- [Plaud puts its software on a pin you can wear four ways](https://wearable.tools/blog/plaud-notepin-is-the-wearable-note) — news, 2024-08-28. Plaud opened NotePin preorders on 28 August 2024 at $169, with pin, clip, lanyard and wristband mounts in the box and the same cloud stack as the Note.
- [Launch reviews of the AI Pin are unusually unified](https://wearable.tools/blog/reviewers-say-do-not-buy-the-pin) — news, 2024-04-18. Launch reviews told readers not to buy Humane’s AI Pin the week it shipped. The objections were latency, heat and a product that did not work.
- [Limitless announces a pendant that records all day](https://wearable.tools/blog/limitless-unveils-the-pendant) — news, 2024-04-15. Limitless showed a wearable microphone on 15 April 2024 with a claimed 100-hour battery. The consent LED still matters if that number moves.
- [Humane’s AI Pin is for sale](https://wearable.tools/blog/humane-ai-pin-goes-on-sale) — news, 2024-04-11. On 11 April 2024 Humane opened orders on the AI Pin at $699 plus $24 a month. It is a phone-replacement pin with LTE, not a tap-to-record meeting tool.
- [Humane delays the AI Pin and throws in three free months](https://wearable.tools/blog/humane-delays-ai-pin-shipping) — news, 2024-02-23. Early AI Pin orders slipped from March into mid-April 2024. Humane added three months of its $24 plan — an admission that the clock was the product.
- [Plaud’s card recorder is a meeting tool, not a wearable](https://wearable.tools/blog/plaud-note-arrives-as-a-card) — news, 2024-01-11. At CES 2024 the Plaud Note was already a MagSafe card you could buy: a meeting recorder with a cloud transcript, not a pin you forget on a shirt.

## Reference

- [Briefing](https://wearable.tools) — notes on voice wearables; dated archive of scoring notes and news
- [Ranking](https://wearable.tools/ranking) — which voice wearable is actually worth wearing; shipping devices, weighted totals, dated from the scoring pass
- [How scores are built](https://wearable.tools/methodology) — axes, weights, the 0–10 scale in half-point steps, hardware price and plan, tiebreakers, unpublished specifications
- [Hardware](https://wearable.tools/hardware) — directory of every object, including those not on sale
- [What this site is](https://wearable.tools/about) — what wearable.tools is