Plaud made earbuds for people who want to record every meeting and call

Plaud Nearly four years after the debut of ChatGPT, no company has managed to convince regular people to replace their smartphone with an AI gadget. Certainly, more than a few have tried (and failed miserably), but the phone remains the dominant way people interact with modern technology, including large language models. Now, a company called Plaud is trying to tackle that nutshell in a way that's different from the likes of Rabbit and Humane. If you're not familiar with Plaud, don't worry, you're not the only one. The company is perhaps best known known for the Plaud Note and Note Pro, a pair of devices you can magnetically attach to your phone to record in-person conversations to be later automatically transcribed and summarized for you. With its latest device, the Plaud One, the company is releasing a pair of earbuds that don't need a phone at all to record and transcribe in-person and online conversations. The device can also connect to the company's AI agent without a companion device. Plaud has managed to do this by integrating LTE connectivity into Plaud One's charging case. The company has also negotiated terms with carriers in more than 80 countries and regions to allow the earbuds to connect to the internet without a cellular contract. Each earbud has 16MB of local storage, with the charging case offering an additional 512MB of onboard storage. With just the case, Plaud says users should have enough space to record up to 30 hours of audio. The earbuds can also natively capture audio from video calling apps like Google Meet and Zoom. The case has its own set of microphones so that you can record meeting, conversations or personal voice memos without wearing the earbuds. Either way, the idea here is that the Plaud One can automatically upload those recordings directly to Plaud's servers so that the company's software can then transcribe and summarize everything that was said, all before you ever get back to your desk. Afterward, Plaud's personal assistant is there to do things like generate reports for you, prepare follow-ups and take action across a selection of supported third-party apps, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion and Slack. You can invoke the agent by saying by "Hey, Plaud" or pressing the dedicated button located on the side of the case.  Plaud If you want to use the Plaud One earbuds for listening to music and podcasts, you can, though that's a use case that will require pairing them with a phone or other device. For that exact purpose, the earbuds offer Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, with multipoint support included, meaning you can connect them with up two devices. However, Bluetooth codec support is a mixed bag. Outside of SBC, you get LDAC. In theory, that means the earbuds are capable of Hi-Res audio playback, but if you're iPhone user, you won't get the benefit of Sony's protocol and your phone will default to SBC. Even some Android users might be left out in the cold without support for any of Qualcomm's AptX codecs included. I imagine Plaud One's primary audience won't mind, but the limited codec support will probably limit these from being a pair of great all-around earbuds.  That said, the earbuds do offer active noise cancellation, with Plaud advertising up to 40 decibels of ambient noise reduction. You also get a handful of EQ presets and IP54 dust and splash resistance. Additionally, you can add the device to Apple's Find My network, and Google's Fast Pair protocol is supported as well. Battery life comes in at a claimed six hours with ANC off and if you use the earbuds primarily for must playback. Plaud says users are more likely close to four hours of uptime if they use the earbuds mostly for calling. The case's 830mAh battery offers up to 36 hours of additional battery life. With 10 minutes of USB-C charging, you get can two hours of additional usage out of the device. A full charge takes approximately a full hour. All of that is pretty standard for a pair of modern Bluetooth earbuds. Plaud is releasing a $250 "Explorer Edition" of the Plaud One aimed at early adopters before making the device more broadly available. Pre-orders open today in select markets. The company expects shipments to begin sometime before the end of the year. Around that same time, Plaud will release version 4.0 of its app, which will roll out to all of its existing devices. Each Explorer Edition will come with $200 worth of complimentary Plaud tokens, which you'll need to use the device's agentic features. Plaud is still deciding on just how many tokens it will offer through each of its different account tiers. Even if you don't intend to use the AI features, making full use of the transcription features will almost certainly require one of Plaud's subscription plans. There, each tier comes with a different amount of included minutes. For instance, the free Starter plan offers 300 minutes of monthly transcription minutes, while the $20 Pro plan gets you 1,200 minutes every 30 days. Either way, you're looking at potentially spending quite a bit more to use these earbuds than their $250 price suggests.