Amazon’s personal AI wearables maker Bee has announced its first new product since being acquired by the retail giant last year. The company on Thursday unveiled Bee Frontier, a next-generation device that can be worn on the wrist or secured to clothing, and Bee Eclipse, a credit card-sized device that attaches magnetically to the back of a smartphone.
The latter puts the Bee in more direct competition with AI devices like Plaud Note and Pocket, but at a lower price point. The Bee Frontier costs $74.99, compared to $159 for the Plaud Note (or $189 for the Note Pro) or $129 for the Pocket AI device.
The Bee Frontier will be available in onyx, lavender, and sage, while the $99.99 Bee Eclipse will be available in silver, midnight, honey, and blush.
Similar to the original Bee, the idea of the new device is to leverage AI to take notes on everyday conversations, remember the important things that were said, and turn them into actionable to-dos, summaries, and insights.
For example, if you discuss making plans with a friend, the bees will remember the date and time you agreed to and create a calendar invitation. You can also use Bee to take lecture notes in class or write down the care plan you discussed with your doctor.
All Bee devices can create conversation summaries and summaries for free and provide 14 days of memory. With a $11.99/month Bee Pro subscription, users receive unlimited conversation summaries and integration with Amazon.com, Alexa+, and third-party applications. Pro users also get suggested tasks, daily memories, a personal chat assistant, and conversation templates.
To make all of this possible, Bee devices use a private computing security architecture and do not store the live audio of your conversations. Instead, the audio is processed in real-time and then deleted. Conversation transcripts are encrypted using keys created and controlled by your device. This means that no one else, including Amazon employees, can access your files unless you manually and intentionally share them.
You can also connect the Bee to Alexa, allowing your Echo device to recognize what you’re saying using its voice-identifying feature (a feature called Voice ID). The conversation is then recorded to provide Bee insights. (This aspect of Bee is optional, and Amazon says you can remove transcripts and summaries at any time.)
New connectivity to Amazon.com and Alexa allows Bee users to shop from Amazon and hands-free to ask Alexa for Bee insights, summaries, and to-dos.
Bee also integrates with your existing productivity software like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook, so you can draft emails, set up meetings, view action items, and more.
Additionally, you can upload photos to the Bee and connect to Apple’s HealthKit to add photos of your overall health and integrate them into the insights provided.
Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse both have a single button to turn the device off and on, and an indicator light when summarizing a conversation. Frontier also features IP67 water resistance, up to 7 days of battery life, USB-C charging, and dual microphones with advanced noise filtering.
All Bee devices also come with a newly redesigned companion mobile app and a new desktop app.
Bee Frontier is currently available on Amazon, and Eclipse will be available shortly thereafter.
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