After being bombarded with the ads for this thing on Reddit, I gave in and decided to try one out. It came yesterday and the only chance I was going to have to use it was at our book club meeting. 14 guys in a garage (it was cold last night) with all sorts of ambient noises and very different volumes from people speaking. Also - 2.5 hours of talking.
Woke up this morning to a fantastic summary of the night and a list of “to-dos” based on things I’d said within the meeting that I’d look into or follow up on.
That’s not at all the context for which I plan to use Pocket, but if that’s any indication of how it will do in brief, passing interactions one on one with others, I’m going to really like this thing.
Anyone else already using it and got any tips or feedback? Reviews online were very mixed, but the specific objections didn’t seem to be issues I’ll mind.
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I am intrigued but have not made the jump yet.
I suppose my most basic question is - while it seems like a cool idea, what is the benefit of it being hardware rather than simply an app?
A few that motivated me to try it:
- A single button on the side to start and stop recordings. While I could do this with the Action button, I hadn’t done so before and would have some reliability concerns.
- Separate battery and storage from my phone. In fact, the ability to physically de-couple them and take only the Pocket if so desired.
- A physical button to switch between recording “in room” and a phone conversation. I’m sure an App could handle both but, again, I’d have reliability concerns.
My most frequent use case for this will be the passing conversations I have with coworkers when one of us is standing in the hall, in a doorway, etc. Those are the times where I find myself wishing most that I had a summary of what we said and a record of asks and commitments.
The Pocket seems small enough (and generally attached to my phone) that it won’t be a burden to have around and fast enough to activate that I’ll do it far more often than opening an app or (as today) getting out my voice recorder and making a memo.
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That makes sense
Do you let people know you are recording? Do you think that is necessary? Not sure what I think about that.
Yes, I’ve thought about this as well. And it will be a little try and see how people feel.
There’s a general understanding on our team that it’s always possible (even likely) someone is recording for notes/AI purposes.
Also, the device isn’t hidden and it has a little led light that changes color when recording, so they could ask about it if they like.
Finally, if any topic of a significantly personal nature came up, it would be on me to ask them to hold on while I turn it off. I think most of the people I work with would be fine with this arrangement. In the past, our practice has been to delete the verbatim transcripts and to keep only summaries. We’ll see!
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