Blog

If you’ve ever wanted jewelry that records conversations with your friends, transcribes them, and gives you ideas for follow-ups, this is your lucky day. Based Hardware launches ‘Friend’, an AI necklace that helps you remember the people you meet, the conversations you’ve had and the commitments you’ve made.

For people with shockingly bad memories of people and names like me, it sounds perfect. Of course, there’s the creep factor: more on that in a bit.

The Friend is a $97 microphone that looks like a jewel. Wear it around your neck and it’ll listen to your conversations all day long, whether in person or on Zoom. Using ChatGPT, it will summarize these conversations, extract action items, and maintain an updated profile for your friends and colleagues with relevant information such as “I just moved” or “I’m going to the party at Jason’s house.”

“It transforms your conversations into memories and proactive insights,” says Based Hardware CEO and founder Nick Shevchenko.

All data is stored locally on your phone in the companion Friend device app, according to Based Hardware, making device privacy safe on your end. Friend lights up when recording, so friends and colleagues will theoretically know when their voice is being recorded. (Polite people will probably also mention that they record all their conversations.)

The Friend device has a six-day battery life, a microphone for audio capture, Bluetooth to connect to your phone, and 5-second transcription. It is now available in a developer version that costs $68, and is available for pre-order for $70.

Friend won’t save conversations, but of course the transcripts will still exist in the app on your phone. The Friend app will provide AI-powered suggestions, acting as a conversation coach (don’t say “um” so much) and can automatically create calendar items for events you say you’ll attend.

Based Hardware says it will ship the consumer product in the fourth quarter of 2024.

“When we show the Friend device, at least 20 percent of people immediately ask us how to buy it,” said Shevchenko, who is a recipient of the Thiel Fellowship, a $200,000 “scholarship” for founders who choose to skip college. “1,500 units have been sold so far, with 1,000 already delivered to developers and influencers.”

Essentially, what you have is a ChatGPT device: a potentially more interesting piece of AI hardware than the Rabbit R1 or the AI ​​Pin from Humane. It is the embodiment of a ubiquitous AI in our lives that helps us remember, sort, organize and act on all the information we come into contact with.

It’s also a potential privacy nightmare and possibly a relationship killer. And another step towards a world we are getting closer to every day where nothing is private, everything is public and everything is recorded.

For starters, how would you change your conversations if you knew everything was being recorded? Would you tell the same jokes, would you respond the same way, or do you worry that some of the things you say might be taken out of context and used against you at some point? Or would you just freeze and not speak normally, realizing that you are essentially on stage and being watched by an AI?

Audio is just the first step, says Shevchenko:

“The necklace is just the first step. Future directions include the addition of video, brain-computer interfaces, and new formats such as smart glasses, headphones, and other wearables that people find most convenient and unobtrusive.”

It’s an interesting device. I want the superpowers it promises to deliver: always remembering names, never forgetting a party invite, remembering all the great ideas you’ve had or the wonderful conversations you’ve had. As did many others, apparently: The Friend reached 10 times its Kickstarter goal for the initial version of the product, with 712 backers pledging $49,868 to develop this product.

I’m just not sure I want the world this creates to exist. Although it seems inevitable.