Hardware startup Plaud is back with its fourth device, and this time it wants to live both on your shirt and on your screen.
Ahead of CES 2026 in Las Vegas, the company is launching the Plaud NotePin S, a $179 AI pin for in‑person conversations, plus a new desktop app that automatically takes notes in your Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls.
A leaner AI pin with actual buttons
Plaud first tried the AI pin format in 2024 with a clip-on recorder that TechCrunch’s Brian Heater called out as one of the more thoughtful takes in the space. The NotePin S is the follow‑up: smaller, more wearable, but still very much a dedicated audio capture device rather than a general‑purpose “AI wearable.”
Key upgrade: it now has a physical button.
- Press once to start and stop recording.
- Tap during a meeting to “highlight” key moments — the same trick Plaud just added to its Note Pro line.
That one control gives you something a lot of AI note apps still struggle with: a clear signal of what actually mattered in the meeting.
Specs: built for long days, short distances
Under the hood, the NotePin S is basically the same as the previous generation:
- Storage: 64GB onboard
- Battery: up to 20 hours of continuous recording
- Microphones: two MEMS mics
- Range: designed to capture clear audio within 9.8 feet (about 3 meters)
- Transcription: 300 minutes per month included for free
Compared with the Plaud Note Pro, you’re trading down on range and battery life. But you’re getting a smaller, lighter device that’s easier to wear in more ways.
Wear it however you want
Plaud clearly expects this thing to move with you through a day of in‑person meetings. Out of the box, the $179 price includes:
- A clip
- A lanyard
- A magnetic pin
- A wristband
So you can hang it around your neck, pin it to a jacket, snap it to a bag, or wear it like a minimalist wrist recorder.
Plaud is also adding Apple Find My support. If you misplace the NotePin S, you can hunt it down from the Find My app instead of tearing your backpack apart.
The company says the pin is aimed at people who are constantly on the move — sales reps, reporters, founders, doctors, and anyone else who spends more time in conference rooms and cafés than at a desk.
Plaud says this is its fourth device, and across the lineup it has sold more than 1.5 million devices so far.
From physical meetings to virtual ones
Until now, Plaud’s hardware has skewed heavily toward in‑person capture. NotePin S keeps that focus, but the company is clearly watching the boom in AI meeting assistants.
Alongside the pin, Plaud is releasing a desktop client that takes on tools like Granola, Fathom, and Fireflies. The pitch: one app that works across your existing meeting stack.
Here’s what it does:
- Meeting detection: It watches for active online meetings and prompts you to start capturing a transcript.
- System‑audio capture (Mac): On macOS, the app records from system audio, so it hears exactly what you hear in the call.
- AI‑structured notes: After the call, Plaud’s AI turns the raw transcript into structured notes instead of just dumping a wall of text at you.
That last part is key. Most people don’t want full transcripts — they want decisions, follow‑ups, and a quick way to remember who said yes to what.
Multimodal notes come to desktop
Last year, Plaud added multimodal inputs to its mobile app: you could attach images and typed notes alongside the audio transcription.
That same flexibility is now coming to the desktop client. During or after a meeting, you’ll be able to:
- Drop in screenshots or photos
- Add typed context or bullet points
- Keep everything tied to the underlying transcript
For hybrid teams, that matters. Not every key detail lives in the audio — sometimes it’s a whiteboard photo, a slide, or a quick URL someone pastes in the chat.
Where Plaud fits in the AI notes race
The AI notetaker space is crowded, but split:
- Pure software: browser extensions and bots that join calls (Fathom, Fireflies, Granola)
- Pure hardware: dedicated recorders and experimental AI pins
Plaud is trying to straddle both. NotePin S handles hallway chats, interviews and offline meetings. The desktop client goes after Zoom-era meetings.
The hardware angle gives Plaud a few tangible advantages:
- Reliable capture in noisy real‑world spaces where laptop mics struggle.
- A literal button you can tap to mark important sections.
- A form factor people can wear all day without opening a laptop.
But the company still has to answer big questions on privacy and compliance, especially for enterprise use. The launch details so far focus on features, not governance.
The takeaway
Plaud isn’t building a “face computer” or a general‑purpose wearable assistant. With NotePin S and its new desktop app, it’s going after a more specific, less glamorous problem: making sure you never leave a meeting wishing you’d taken better notes.
If Plaud can nail reliable capture, sensible AI summaries, and a sane pricing model for transcription beyond the included 300 free minutes a month, it has a shot at being the go‑to note layer for both sides of the modern workplace — the room and the Zoom.
