A raft of voice-based {hardware} gadgets have emerged, aimed toward companionship, productiveness, or private progress. These embody card-shaped gadgets from Plaud and Pocket; pendants from Buddy, Limitless, and Taya; and a wristband from Bee, which is now a part of Amazon.
Now, two former Meta staff who labored on interface design have launched Sandbar, a startup that has created a hoop referred to as Stream for comparable functions. The corporate calls the ring “a mouse for voice” as a result of it may take notes, make it easier to work together with an AI assistant, and allow you to management music.
Sandbar’s CEO, Mina Fahmi, has an in depth background in designing human-computer interfaces. He labored at Bryan Johnson’s Kernel and later at good glasses startup Magic Leap. Kirak Hong, Sandbar’s CTO, labored at Google earlier than becoming a member of CTRL-Labs, the place the duo met. Meta acquired the startup in 2019, and its work ultimately led to neural interfaces for the tech big’s good wearables.
Fahmi mentioned that when giant language fashions began rising a number of years in the past, he constructed an experimental journaling app. Nonetheless, he discovered that the app turned a barrier to capturing his ideas. Given his expertise constructing {hardware} interfaces, he started exploring a conversational {hardware} interface as an alternative.
“A lot of my ideas bubble up when I’m walking or when I’m commuting, and I don’t want to pull out my phone to interrupt that moment. I don’t want to shout into my earbuds where the world can hear me to talk through an idea. Kirak and I were trying to understand what it would take to actually capture a thought the moment it bubbles up. That’s how we came up with Stream,” Fahmi advised TechCrunch in an interview.
The ring, designed to be worn in your dominant hand’s index finger, has microphones and a contact pad.
In a digital demo, Fahmi wore the Stream ring on his index finger and recorded his ideas by urgent and holding the touchpad. By default, the microphone is off, activating solely with this gesture. The microphone proved delicate sufficient to select up whispers and transcribe them within the companion iOS app. Different apps like Wispr Move and Willow equally enable individuals to seize their ideas quietly.
Stream’s app consists of an AI chatbot that converses with you as you file your ideas. You possibly can manage these into separate notes that both you or the AI can edit. The app additionally permits you to pinch to zoom out and assessment what you’ve mentioned over days or perhaps weeks. Sandbar has added a personalization layer so the assistant’s voice sounds considerably just like the person’s.
Fahmi mentioned that in crowded areas, customers can put on headphones to converse privately with the assistant. With out headphones, the ring gives haptic suggestions when it efficiently registers a word, permitting you so as to add to-dos, take notes, or test gadgets off a grocery record quietly.
Past voice features, the ring’s flat floor doubles as a media controller, permitting you to play, pause, skip tracks, and modify quantity. Whereas many headphones provide comparable controls, the ring might show helpful when your arms are occupied or while you’re in transit.
The corporate is opening up preorders for Stream on Wednesday at $249 for the silver model and $299 for gold. Sandbar goals to start delivery subsequent summer time. A Professional subscription tier — free for 3 months for individuals who preorder, then $10 monthly — provides limitless chats, notes, and early entry to new options.
Fahmi mentioned the corporate offers customers full management over their information at any tier, with encryption each at relaxation and in transit. He added that Sandbar doesn’t imagine in walled gardens and plans to help information exports to apps like Notion.
Sandbar has raised $13 million in funding from True Ventures, Upfront Ventures, and Betaworks.
Toni Schneider, a associate at True Ventures, mentioned he had been skeptical of AI gadgets, as demos he’d seen earlier than Stream weren’t spectacular.
“I think a lot of people would agree that voice and AI go really well together. And [they also agree] that having a phone or even a laptop to interact with AI is kind of a lot when all you need is voice. So there should be some kind of new form factor out there. We looked at a lot of them, and a lot of them just didn’t quite hit the target. When Mina came in and showed us the demo, it made sense to us,” he advised TechCrunch.
Competitors is fierce within the voice-AI {hardware} area, with many builders exploring rings as a kind issue. Fahmi mentioned he doesn’t need Stream to be an assistant or a companion, however slightly an interface for customers to precise their concepts whereas sustaining full management.
AI {hardware} has but to attain mainstream success. Humane offered to HP, Rabbit is trying to enhance person expertise and engagement by software program updates, and Buddy is making an attempt to leverage person backlash to gas progress. Sandbar might want to show that its ring kind issue provides real comfort and worth that pendants, pins, or wristbands can’t.
