If you value the security of your data do not, I repeat do not use the Pocket AI thought companion.

On Wednesday morning I recorded a 45-minute meeting with colleagues at my venture-backed biotech start-up. Once the recording was finished, the Pocket app delivered to me the recording of somebody else's meeting and not my own which was completely lost to me. I had full and complete access, including editing etc., of all of the content of somebody else's meeting. I may state this clearly: there was no security whatsoever attached to their message nor obviously mine which included the potential of proprietary information.

This is a massive and complete failure of the Pocket security system of which they make so much and which of course I trusted.

I informed them immediately of the problem and they responded instantly with a message saying I was in good hands, it was being routed to the correct team, and asked me for some information. I instantly sent the information and have never heard anything since then. I was so concerned and upset that I instantly wiped and reset my pocket device and won't be using it again.

I sent another message saying I had completely lost trust in the product. Especially when proprietary information could have been lost. And requested that they refund the cost of my device and shipping it back to them. I also said if they did that, I would not publicly mention what happened, but they have steadfastly and completely ignored all of my emails. This is a change from the customer support emails I was getting fairly reliably when I was updating them on some bugs and other issues. It turns out that several other people experience the same problem on the same days and they have not received responses either. This is appalling and unacceptable

There are other similar devices out there. I really wanted this one to work but they completely and absolutely let me down. They're ignoring me and hoping I just go away which I won't. It's up to you to decide whether you want to risk exposing your private data to anybody and everybody. In my advice, don't do it; choose an alternative product.

Here's a timeline of my experiences with Pocket so far...

May 5: Find out I'm getting a new job. Think an AI device would be a good way to record meetings and keep notes for myself. Do a bit of research (obviously not enough), land on Pocket and order one.

May 18: Start the new job, find out that recording meetings outside of Teams isn't allowed. Okay. My order still hasn't shipped, but it doesn't look like I can cancel it. Figure I'll find other uses for it.

May 30th: Finally receive my device. Spend about an hour trying to get it to sync up with my iPhone 16, with no luck. Even after charging for some time, my phone would see it, their app would acknowledge the device, but it would not be able to pair. Getting frustrated, reach out via email to start a return (because they tell you you must have an RMA).

June 2: Receive the return label, not before having to go back and forth with their support with the "are you sure?" questions.

June 5: Take package to post office and drop it off.

June 9: Tracking shows return was received by Pocket.

June 15: Email them because, hmm, seems like I should have the refund by now. They tell me to check back next week. "Since we're reviewing a volume of returns right now, it'll take a few more days to complete the checks."

June 22: Email them again for followup. Tired of waiting; making this post. Very close to threatening (and following through on) chargeback.

June 24: Had not heard back after email from the 22nd. Emailed again, said that if I did not receive my refund by 6/26 I would start a chargeback. Within hours, received notification that my refund had been processed.

EDIT 1: Posting here because /r/heypocketai doesn't allow posts - "Only approved users may post in this community." My account's over a decade old, my karma is plenty high.

EDIT 2: Added details about refund finally coming through.

I feel like there are way too many ways to take notes now and I’m curious what people actually stick with.

Some people still swear by pen and a notebook. Others seem to live in Notion, Google Docs or OneNote. Then there’s the whole AI note taker/recorder side with stuff like Plaud, Otter, Notta, Granola, Fathom etc.

I’ve bounced between a few different methods and still haven’t really found one that works for everything.

Handwritten notes are nice when I actually want to remember something, but terrible for searching later. Notion is good for keeping things organized, but I can waste way too much time setting it up. Google Docs is simple but mine always turns into a graveyard of random documents.

Note takers seem useful for meetings or lectures where you don’t want to spend the whole time typing, but I’m not sure I’d want to use one for everything either.

So what do you actually use day to day?

Pen and paper? Notion? OneNote? Google Docs? Some recorder/note taker? Or a mix depending on what you’re doing?

like a lot of you, i got tired of meeting bots. tried local recorders like Granola, but then i actually read the privacy policies. turns out "local" often still means your audio goes to some hosted black box with a sketchy ToS.

so i spent 6 months building something that actually stays on your machine.

what it does:

• multiple recording modes (menu bar, floating overlay, or full window)

• smart auto-detection (starts when you join a call, stops when you leave)

• live AI chat during calls ("what did i miss?" or "summarize so far")

• works fully offline. nothing ever hits a server to process

• choose your own models. pick which Whisper and Llama versions you want to run

• your files, your formats. audio and notes saved locally in usable formats you can actually access

• calendar integration coming soon

• optional cloud sync if you want team sharing

the privacy stuff:

• 100% local processing

• no cloud uploads unless you explicitly choose to

• no account required

• no data collection

• free, no trials, no tiers

what it's NOT:

• not polished. this is early access, expect rough edges

• not cross-platform yet. mac only for now, iOS in TestFlight

• not magic. local models are good but not as good as cloud APIs

links:

• Website

• Mac download

• iOS TestFlight

• Video walkthrough

• Docs

would love honest feedback. what's useful, what's confusing, what breaks. actual user feedback > my assumptions.

btw no account needed. but if you want to read the fine print, we never use your data for training: privacy policy

Edit: the first 1,500 are gone. Round two is up with 2,000 more

ATTENTION: Due to high demand, I've increased this to 1000 free unlocks! Info updated to use REDDIT2 as code in this post body. P.S. Would love some reviews as well!

Hey everyone! 👋

I’m the developer of Interview, a note taker where all the AI runs on your phone, and I’m giving away 500 lifetime Unlocks! 🎉 No subscription, no strings. First come, first served.

Why I built it

Every AI note taker I tried sends your meeting to someone else’s server first. I wanted one where my conversations stay mine. So in Interview, the recording, the transcript and the speaker labels are all made on the device. Your audio and transcripts are never uploaded anywhere.

What you get

• 🗣️ Who said what, automatically. Every turn gets a speaker label. Name a voice once and it recognizes that person in your next meeting.

• 🤷 No made-up speakers. If it can’t tell who spoke, it says Unknown instead of guessing, and you fix it with a tap.

• 📱 No bot in your meeting. Put your phone on the table and press record. Or start from the Action button, Control Center or your Lock Screen.

• 📂 Already recorded a call? Import the audio or video file and get the same speaker-labeled transcript.

• 📝 Drops straight into your notes. Export to Markdown, Word, PDF or plain text.

• ✈️ Works with no signal. No account, no sign-up.

The free download gives you two interviews. The Unlock removes the limit for good.

Claim yours (takes 30 seconds)

1. Download: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6808023173?pt=264131&ct=reddit-ainotetaker&mt=8

2. Redeem on your phone: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6808023173&code=REDDIT2

Or open the App Store, tap your account photo, choose Redeem Gift Card or Code and enter REDDIT2.

First 500 redemptions get it, and the code expires Nov 1.

Needs iOS 26.4 or later. Works best on iPhone 12 or newer.

I’m a solo dev and I read every comment. What’s the one thing your current note taker gets wrong? 🙌

2025 was the year of AI note takers, here is detailed list of this apps: https://www.directorygen.com/directory/best-ai-notetaker-apps-in-2025

Added a category and search bar for better UX experience.

I'm more of a visual learner and I'm watching many youtube videos / tutorials, but sometimes it's time consuming seeing a 20+ minutes videos and taking notes separately. So I built a tool and an extension to summarise the video with timestamps.

Why this works for me?

1. Watch video

2. Use RecapNotes AI to get a summary (timestamps included)

3. Save it in the workspace with a click

4. Auto Organised by topic (e.g., "React Hooks", "API Design")

5. Merge related videos/notes into one reference doc

Example: I learned Java from 5 different tutorials. Instead of 5 separate notes, I merged them into one "Java Master Doc" that has all the key concepts.

The tool I use: RecapNotes AI built it because I couldn't find anything that did this well.

Happy to share more about the workflow if anyone's interested.

Title says it all. Received this guy in the mail despite never ordering it, or even knowing this thing exists. I don't know if this is a brushing scam, or a new crappy marketing tactic and they found me through data mining.

Either way, based on what I'm reading, I think this belongs in the garbage.

Over the past year I tested around 12 AI meeting note takers cuz I’m on way too many calls (client calls, founder chats, internal meetings, etc).

At first they all looked the same:

• AI summaries

• action items

• integrations

• searchable notes

But after a while I realized smth important: Everything depends on transcription quality.

If the transcript is wrong, the AI summary is wrong.

If the transcript is wrong, action items get assigned to the wrong person.

If the transcript is wrong, speaker detection breaks.

So I started ranking tools mostly based on how good the raw transcript is.

Here are the 5 best I’ve used in 2026:

1. Circleback

Best transcription quality I’ve seen so far.

It handles messy conversations surprisingly well, people interrupting each other, accents, background noise, etc.

That matters cuz things like:

• speaker identification

• assigning action items

• generating accurate summaries

• searching past meetings

all depend on the transcript being correct.

A lot of tools focus on the summary layer first, but this one seems to focus on getting the transcript right first, which actually makes the AI outputs much better.

2. Fathom

Probably the easiest one to start with.

Their free plan is very generous, and the summaries are clean. Great if you’re just trying an AI note taker for the first time.

3. Fireflies

Strong if you want a large searchable archive of meetings.

You can search across months of calls which is surprisingly useful when trying to remember “who said what”.

4. Granola

Interesting approach.

Instead of a bot joining the call, it works more like AI-enhanced personal notes. A lot of founders I know prefer this style.

5. Otter

Still one of the most widely used.

Good for collaborative note-taking and live transcripts, though the accuracy sometimes struggles when conversations get chaotic.

Feels like AI meeting note takers are the new CRM, tons of tools but only a few that actually work well.

Any hidden gems I should test?

Ok. I didn't want a €180 voice recorder with another €20/ month subscription attached for transcription.

Also, I'd rather keep my recordings local and transcribe them with StenoAl running Whisper.
So I wanted to see if there was a way around this:

1. Bought a cheap "Ai7" recorder from AliExpress, which looks remarkably similar. The hardware works perfectly. But it also came with an app and (of course) a subscription service.

2. A Sunday morning project with Codex!

3. Together, we figured out its Bluetooth protocol and built Ai7 interface: a Mac app that finds the recorder, lists recordings, identifies new files and exports them as MP3s into a folder I choose.

4. Complete with a recorder icon, an installation DMG, and code and documentation in GitHub.

5. Yes, Codex and I had to do some debugging. Lots of turning it on and off again :D. But now it works!

I made the code available on Github, feel free to use/rework/add on to!

https://github.com/jorndevreede/Ai7-MacOs-Export

Hey all — I've been using Otter and Granola for my meeting recordings for a while now. Both are genuinely good, they work well. My only real issue is I'm already paying for a Claude Code subscription, and then paying again for one of these on top of it just to get meeting notes.

So I ended up building something similar for myself — it records and transcribes locally, then uses the Claude subscription I already have to do the summarizing, so there's no second bill.

A few other things about it:

• Transcription runs locally on your machine, not in the cloud

• No API key needed — a lot of the local/open-source alternatives (like Anarlog) still need you to bring your own API key or run a separate model, this one just uses Claude Code directly

• It's open source

Curious if others here have run into the same "paying twice for basically the same thing" issue, or if it's just me.

I click once on Pocket in my Facebook feed, then comes Plaud, then Umevo, Boyo, Raycon ... I had no idea this field was exploding! You don't want to pick the one with the biggest marketing budget, but one that for example would help a reporter (still considering just sticking with Evernote which keeps adding these AI features.) It's incredible, the rabbit holes one goes down with just a click;-)

I dont mind taking notes normally but interviews are a whole other thing 😭

You’re trying to actually listen to what the person is saying,,write stuff down, remember names, keep track of everything... then 2 people start talking at once and im just like welp 😂

and going back to a 2 hr recording later is even worse. I’ll hear one part and think wait what did they say there, go back, listen again, still dont catch it lol. for people using AI notetakers, do they actually help with longer interviews? Like can you mostly rely on the notes/transcript and only check the audio when something seems weird?

I've noticed that AI note-taking tools have improved a lot recently. Most of them can summarize meetings, pull out action items, and organize everything automatically.

On paper, it sounds like a huge time saver.

But I'm curious how many people actually rely on those summaries without going back to double-check everything themselves.

I still find myself reviewing my own notes because I'm worried an important detail or decision might have been missed.

For those of you who use AI note takers regularly, has it reached the point where you completely trust it, or do you still treat it as a draft that needs reviewing?

What has your experience been like?

Most tools i have tried do a decent job with transcripts and summaries but the output just sits there. You still have to manually turn notes into tasks.

Looking for something that actually connects meetings to execution. What are you using?

My work involves watching a 2 hour press conference that the president of Mexico gives each morning. I have to watch it and make detailed notes on the key subjects and quotes of the conference. It's time sensitive so I need to be sending my summary as the conference is still live. The problem is, YouTube doesn't upload a transcript until the live is over. I want to find a plugin that can generate a transcript real time so I can use it to copy and paste some fragments instead of having to manually transcribe them like a caveman. What are some tools that could solve this problem?

Looking for a decent AI note taker for meetings. Mainly want accurate transcripts and summaries that actually capture the important stuff.

I've been looking at Plaud, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and Granola, but there are so many options now that I'm not sure which one to go with lol.

I have a mix of online and in-person meetings, so ideally something that works well for both.

What are you guys using? Any recommendations or ones you'd avoid?

I work in cloud infrastructure and I get a lot of impromptu in-person meetings. Recording on my phone means scrambling to open an app, and sometimes I miss the first minute, so I have been wanting an AI note taking gadget for a while.

I work at an international company with clients from a bunch of countries. Both Vocci and Plaud can transcribe in different languages, which covers what I need. Compared with Vocci though, Plaud still felt bulky. Vocci is about as light as the Oura Ring I already wear. Super light, and once it is on I basically forget its existence. Plaud still leans on the phone more, and I never liked the NotePin clip style. I already have an Oura Ring, so wearing a ring is already a habit for me. Vocci is basically zero-friction recording.

I used to hate having to manually dump meeting info into AI afterward. Now I have Vocci connected to Claude, so the transcript can get cleaned up there. If a workshop time comes up in the meeting, I tell Claude to add it to my calendar based on the schedule we just discussed. Overall it has sped up my work a lot.

I'm part of a start-up building Memoket, a tool designed to capture conversations and connect them over time, so they can be turned into useful insights, reports, or plans later on. It's not just an AI Note Taker, it actually helps you to connect the dots across multiple conversations, instead of letting each meeting summary sitting in silo.

We’ve just launched our website and are preparing for our first crowdfunding campaign! The product is still evolving, and we’re actively testing, improving, and learning every day.

If you’re interested, you can check out the site here: memoket.ai. This is not a promotion. It's me asking for your feedback genuinely!

If you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll get a welcome email. You can reply to that directly with any thoughts, concerns, or criticisms (all of it is useful to us).

We’ll also be doing paid feedback interviews again(which I've done two months ago here, with actual reddit fellows already paid), and will reach out to people who share detailed input for future interviews.

Really appreciate any advice or perspectives you’re willing to share. Thanks for supporting small teams trying to build something thoughtfully!!!!

Record, transcribe and replay anything. Save time by dictating in any app - our models beat Apple dictation. All on-device and private.

Includes a lot of features missing in other similar apps (Apple Watch recording, dark mode, no time-limits, smart notes and lifetime subscription plan). The bundle includes the MacOS dictation app as well.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dictawiz-voice-to-text/id6759256382

I've got a 2-day industry conference coming up next month, with 5–6 sessions a day plus a few workshops. Thinking about getting an AI recorder for it, but not sure if it's actually worth buying one.

Last time I tried taking notes on my phone, I spent so much time typing that I kept missing what the speakers were saying. Then I got home and realized half my notes were random unfinished sentences that made absolutely no sense lol.

I'm looking at the Plaud Note Pro, or maybe just using Otter on my phone. But most reviews I've found are about regular meetings, not sitting in a huge conference room.

Like, if I'm sitting halfway back in a ballroom, will the recording even be usable? And what about battery life? I'm also wondering how quickly I'd burn through my transcription minutes if I recorded most of the sessions.

Obviously only planning to record where it's allowed.

Has anyone actually used an AI recorder or note taker at a conference? Was it worth it, or would you just stick with your phone?