Pulse Smartpen Review – Link Your Notes With Your Audio Recording
- A six month test.
The Pulse smartpen is one of the most innovative products I’ve seen in years. The pen allows you to write on paper, but when you dock it into its USB charger, your notes are automatically transferred to your PC/Mac. But the best part is that it also records the audio during your meetings or classes. You would imagine that you could then also play back the audio on your PC – and indeed you can. But even better, when you tap your handwritten notes with the smartpen itself, it even plays back exactly that part of the meeting through the built-in speaker! It’s a great invention for college students and professionals alike for note taking and to record meetings, classes and courses.
Why It’s Clever
For years, I’d been looking for a solution to store and archive on my PC my notes from meetings and courses, to replace the untidy piles of paper and sticky notes that used to complement my memory. I considered a laptop with a touch screen to write on, but since those usually have small screens, I thought I’d go for a “smartpen.” There are several technologies on the market, but after doing a comparison, I decided to go for the new Pulse smartpen. After about six months of use, I’m still really eager to share this review with you. I think that this pen is an ideal tool for note-taking during meetings, but even more for college students or professionals to record and review their classes.
The dot paper:
This is the core and the real genius of this system. The pen uses a special paper with an almost invisible dot pattern printed on it. The integrated camera films the paper you’re writing on, and the pen applies an algorithm to the filmed pattern. Years ago, the Swedish company Anoto invented this system, and they created an algorithm that made it possible to print a surface as large as Europe, with each spot still having a completely unique pattern. Since each page of the books is unique, the pen knows exactly where you’re writing, on which page of which book and when. You can write on plain paper too, of course, but then it’s just like any other ballpoint.
You’d think that would take the opportunity to rip you off when you need to purchase new paper, but I must say that the prices of the books are very reasonable. And in one of the latest free upgrades to their computer software, they even provide a function to print the paper yourself on most laser printers.
The Pulse pen:
The Pulse smartpen is in fact a computer, camera and recording device that’s built into a pen about the size of a thick fountain pen. It comes with 2 or 4 Gigabytes of storage, allowing you to record up to 400 hours of stereo audio and written text. You can write and draw whatever you like on the supplied paper, using normal ink, and the pen registers every stroke. When you dock the smartpen into the USB charger, all your notes and drawings are copied to the PC and show up on your PC screen exactly the same as they were on the paper.
The pen has a display, two microphones, a loudspeaker and a headphone connection. It doesn’t have menu buttons, though, because it doesn’t need them. Those are printed at the bottom of each page, and you can simply operate the pen by tapping the button for the function you want.
What it does:
Your notes aren’t converted into a word-processor document or text – they stay handwritten on the PC also, and it looks like you’ve simply scanned your notes. But the PC software that comes with the pen does allow you to search for any words in your handwritten notes – quite a challenge with my handwriting, but it does work. Now I can finally misplace my paper notes without having to worry – I’ll always have them with me on my laptop, and I can find any note from any meeting or class in seconds.
But the really good part is that you can now also record audio, hour after hour, by simply tapping the record button at the bottom of any printed page – preferably after politely informing those with you in the room. Months later, when you‘re looking at your illegible or extremely brief notes with that familiar puzzled expression, you can simply tap on that part of the text with the smartpen, and it will immediately play back the audio from exactly that part of the conversation. Amazing! And the microphone is really good – I’ve had classes where I was at the back of a room with 50 people with no amplifier system, and I can still listen back to everything the lecturer said.
On the PC, it works in exactly the same way, except that you click the notes with the mouse instead of tapping them with the pen.
Finally, you can upload the notes and audio to the website and give friends, classmates or colleagues of your choice secure access to the text and audio. You can check out some public examples on the website – check out the “Community” tab.
The only thing that's still on my wishlist is an integration with OneNote or another tool, to get some more structure. But probably someone's already working on that.
This video shows it in action:
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Update 1: Dropped my Pulse pen and it fell right on it's tip. It's very much dead now, display still works but it doesn't record my writing anymore. Update 2: Got a new Livescribe smartpen delivered today (had to pay for it, or what did you think). In the original article, I wrote that you need to press hard when writing, or the pen won't record it. Not so with the new one - it even records my lightest handwriting. Love it even more than the first one, but I wonder if it's a general design improvement or if there's simply that much variation in the manufacturing. |
Quite obvious since that was probably a direct hit on the pressure sensor.
Summary
- Smartpen records your handwriting and synchronous audio
- Uses special dot paper (can be purchased or printed on your laser printer)
- Transfer your notes to your PC
- Search your handwritten notes by entering a search term
- Tap your notes, on paper or on the PC, to hear the associated audio recording
- 2 Gigabyte or 4 Gigabyte versions for up to 400 hours of audio recording
- Ideal for college students for class note-taking and playback
- Additional software can be loaded onto the pen
- Integrated scientific calculator
- Works with Windows PCs and Macs.
Tips
There’s third-party handwriting recognition software in the making, but I haven’t tried this yet. Such software would theoretically give you the ability to convert your handwriting into a word-processor document - I remain sceptical until I've seen it working. But I'll be the first to buy it if it does work!
The only slightly negative thing about the pen is that I have to press harder than I’m used to in order to make it store my writing. I adapted my writing relatively quickly, but if you want to keep writing as light as a feather, you should consider that aspect (read update text in the box above).
Anoto licensed the same technology to Logitech (which discontinued the product), Nokia (their current model is called SU-27w), Sony-Ericsson, Maxell and others. But to my knowledge, are the only ones with audio, making them able to tap into the full potential of digital paper. Have a look at Wikipedia for a full overview.
Where to buy
You can buy the Livescribe Pulse smartpen from the Amazon.com website
In Europe, the smartpen and its accessories are available through the Europe website.
Approx. price: $150–200 (February 2010)
Categories: multimedia, time-saving, simply original, review
© Copyright Clever & Easy
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I would like to get such a pen. I take several corses on technical subjects and i really need to re-read or re-listed to some parts of the lectureer's spech. It would be a great help for me.
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|2010-03-23 14:01:13 Clever & EasyIt is a great product. I had a training last week. Uploaded all my notes and audio, linked with the slide numbers to the Livescribe website and gave access to all my colleagues. Pen is paid for already!
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thanks for the information that you have been shared on your site. simple but very informative hoping that you could give more other information about this
