There is great wisdom in an ancient Chinese adage that says,“The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.” The human brain storage center, as described by Brice Kuhl in the Nature Neuroscience journal, is constantly selecting information that it deems relevant and highly probable to be used while suppressing information that is relevant but rarely put to use.

This is an adaptation of the brain memory centers to lessen the cognitive burden and minimize information mix up. In brief, that’s why the phrase, “Sorry, I forgot your birthday,” exists. It’s an important occasion but it comes up once a year!

There are incidences where apologies will undo the act of forgetfulness. However, for professionals whose decision-making is a matter of life and death, may not have the luxury to forget. Having been a victim of forgetfulness, Nazar Fedorchuk conceived the concept of a reminder button as a solution to his condition.

The rationale behind the button reminder christened Senstone, is to capture your thoughts as you verbally speak them out and archive them for later use. What’s neat, is that this device can convert your speech to text and organize your notes for you. As in the words of the brains behind Senstone,”It’s like having an AI to organize your notes.”

According to the inventors, a tap or a finger snap is all you need to set the Senstone in motion.

[Check it out on Kickstarter]

Product Outline

If you are an environmentalist champion, you will definitely love the packaging idea that is envisioned for Senstone. The packaging case and charging station is one in the same! It houses the Senstone and its accessory, as well as doubling up as its charging dock.

The Senstone promises to come with a USB cable for charging and interchangeable backs to suit your choice of wearing it. Be it as a clip, pendant, cuff, or wrist watch. The power of choice rests with you.

Taking the interchangeable backs out of the equation, the Senstone weighs approximately 0.39oz with a surface diameter of 1.16inches. To get a mental picture, its face size is almost similar in size to a US quarter.

Credit: Emily Ferron/New Atlas

Drawing inspiration from the brain waves (still hovering around memory!), the Senstone, for starters will be crafted out of chrome that is plated with brass with future releases featuring an anodized aluminum.

This will give a total of 4 different kinds of body frames to choose from. It’s a classy choice of material that gives Senstone that pseudo-gem stone look with the added bonus of whimsical L.E.D lights. A look that the creators are looking forward to patent. The beauty doesn’t stop there as the screen surface is scratch–proof.

The Senstone will boast up to 11 dictation languages in its initial production state. It promises to come with a battery that will sustain usage to a period of up to 4 days. A claim that we shall delve into later.

How Senstone Works

After close to a year, the first prototype of Senstone was launched on Kickstarter- a crowdfunding platform. Featuring the simple working principle of tapping the device or snapping your fingers in a quiet environment to start recording your Voice notes.

It comes with an auto-transcript feature that automatically scripts your voice notes during the backing up process in the Cloud. The Final voice transcribed text will thereafter be displayed on your phone and you can further edit it.

Senstone Salient Attraction

The artificial intelligent aspect of the automation of the cloud software platform qualifies the words of Nazar that, “Senstone promises to be an Intelligent wearable voice recorder– the first of its kind.”

The Senstone in partnership with Cloud software promises to do a critical voice review with the added benefits transcribing voice memos, isolating keywords and generally sub-categorize your voice notes for easy archiving and retrieval.

Grey Areas that Need Polishing

Let’s delve into the battery charge duration. It is indicated to last for four days. This may be overambitious, but not impossible while recording as the battery energy capacity sits at 80mAh. On average the test unit records for 2.5 hours on a full charge.

Similar sentiments have been raised by curious eyes to which Senstone has promptly responded with an elaborate explanation. In a nutshell, their explanation sets the record straight and confirms the Senstone will last 3 hours on a full charge.

Limitation of the Review

Of the 11 dictation languages that Senstone claims to be compatible with, I am only versed with English. Having said that, this review is entirely based on the English version of the language.

How Good Is The End Product?

If you harbored any thoughts of transcribing your lecturer notes with Senstone, you will be in for a rude awakening. First a distance of 8 inches is advised for best results for speech to text transcription. You will also need to slow down your speech to minimize transcription errors. An attribute that renders it unfeasible in your day to day conversation use. The intended double microphone installation in the final product is anticipated to rectify this fault.

Future Looks Promising

The qualification of the team that is to turn the concept of Senstone into reality is beyond reproach. Backed by a well able body of professionals, Senstone is in the constant business of improving the prototype voice recorder.

[See it on Kickstarter]

The focus is being placed on the expansion of the Artificial Intelligence. Automatic punctuation, environmental awareness and incorporating other third party software is in the pipeline.

Senstone crowdsourcing was launched in early February at Kickstarter aiming to raise $50,000. Senstone really struck a chord with the masses as they have already raised an impressive $213,000 on Kickstarter!

It pays handsomely to be a benefactor for this program. Visit the campaign web page and get to learn more about the benefits before placing your pledge. You have only 9 days to be part of the Senstone story to be flagged off with the first shipment of the first product mid this year.