Always On Recording Device

May 20, 2023 7:58 PM

I owned (still own) the Kapture wristband. Is there any hope for a similar wearable device for always on recording? Do you know someone who could build one?

I always adored this concept and used it readily as a musician and sound collage person - being able to tap my wrist and automatically save what was already recorded for the last minute or so captured stories, jokes, weird sounds, etc. and was delightful. Unfortunately, when the company gave up, the server (?) went away, and all the functionality disappeared. Even some of my files didn't save properly to Google Drive so I lost dozens.

I am aware of the privacy concerns about always on recording. Assume these are not a concern at all. Is there any hope of resurrecting this device, another device like it, or does anyone make anything approaching this type of tech that's wearable/bring-with-able?

Thanks!

posted by tiny frying pan to Technology (3 answers total)

My apple watch has recorded by accident for up to fifteen hours. Instead of a tap to turn it on, you could do two taps to turn off record in voice memos, and then on again to start another file. That way, when you edit later, you’d know that the last part of each file would be what you’d want.

Also, I’ve found the sound to be remarkably good.
posted by umbú at 8:50 PM on May 20, 2023

Goddamn it, I "invented" this in 1992 or so – ring buffer and everything – and even looked for investors. I called it "post-recording" and couldn't convince anyone that a pen-sized device could hold enough storage and battery. In my design, the more times you tapped the shorter all the stored samples got. There were no smartphones or Bluetooth, you had to connect it to your PC to archive the samples. Maybe the fact that no-one's successfully marketed one in the last 30 years means it was never going to work...
posted by nicwolff at 3:03 PM on May 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: That's it! It should have connected directly to PC via USB instead of relying on a cloud.

The marketing seemed to fail because people were scared of privacy concerns which is annoying since people like me are never going to cause a privacy issue recording weird sounds and my friends jokes.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:59 AM on May 25, 2023 [1 favorite]