Reinventing Voice Recorder
The idea of a smart voice recorder would be unthinkable not twenty years ago, but now it’s becoming a reality. Audio recorders went from magnetic tape to the digital era, and it’s high time for another leap. So how is it ‘smart’? Is there a reason why conventional doesn’t cut it anymore?
When talking about what is a good voice recorder, let us start with the number 2.94. According to the recent market report, 2.94 billion is the expected value of the digital voice recorder market by the year 2025. That’s more than double its value in 2017. Interesting; now that almost everyone has a smartphone with some sort of built-in recording app, shouldn’t the numbers be dwindling?
Nope.
If we look close to the ground (for example, on Amazon ), then we’ll see that recording devices transform: they become smaller and come with very specific features designed to strive for speed and convenience. The smaller, the quicker – the better are the reviews, the higher the popularity score. The principle in action is that a voice recorder, no matter specifications, is only useful when it’s efficient and user-friendly.
«A voice recorder, no matter specifications, is only useful when it’s efficient and user-friendly»
With the recorder like Senstone this principle can be taken even further. It beats traditional digital recorders of the past, and it beats the recorders which attempt to stay traditional even as the market is naturally following the shift in technology. All in all, Senstone is what a voice recorder would look like if it were invented from scratch in 2020.
- It’s the size of a pendant (and you can wear it as one, too), because pocket size just isn’t enough in the age of AirPods. To compare, a miniature recorder from the 1950s [http://www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/phonotrixportable.html] weighed ‘only’ a little over 1 kg (2 ¼ lbs)
- Full use of resources. Senstone talks to your smartphone, and its app offers multiple options to tweak at will. Instead of cables and wires, you get seamless transition between smartphone and recorder
- Hands-free, screen-free; what’s the catch? There’s none, and the screen-free functionality isn’t a special mode or an afterthought
- Dictation & audio recording. Both transcript and audio are accessible anytime, safely stored in secure cloud to prevent data loss
To live up to its name, the ‘smart’ in smart voice recorder should stand for ‘flexible’, for the accommodation to the users’ needs first and foremost; Senstone is that but also much more.
A portable audio recorder is always expected to have a number of specific features, reasonably so; but it all boils down to one button: press once to start recording, speak into the microphone. The rest of the functions are dormant until you need them and can be considered secondary. Senstone takes care of the issue. Instead of getting in the way, buttons appear when you need them, conveniently contained within the smartphone, the Swiss Army knife of our time.
«To live up to its name, the ‘smart’ in smart voice recorder should stand for ‘flexible’; Senstone is that but also much more»
Not only does Senstone allow to forego the USB cable to upload audios and transcripts immediately, it also has the thing many people take for granted: support of multiple audio formats. A non-standard format can be a serious bump on the road, especially if you have to spend precious time looking up a suitable online audio converter. Olympus’ proprietary DSS might be useful in some cases, but the good ol’ MP3 is the universal format these days.
This way, the reimagined version of the voice recorder should be:
- portable like a coin, definitely more portable than the phone
- hands-free and as button-less as possible
- screen-free
- fitted with the text-to-speech transcription
- fitted with its own app and synchronization options
Senstone fits the bill perfectly.
