Memoket Gem review: the tiny AI note taker that really impressed me

One of the hottest emerging trends right now is AI notetakers. And I've been testing one from a brand you might never have heard of - but I suspect you soon will do.

It's called the Memoket Gem, it's a wearable voice recorder and note taker, and it's an absolutely amazing bit of tech.

AI note takers sit side by side with smartphone and PC apps that can record a meeting, transcribe it and produce a tidy summary afterwards. But the Memoket Gem takes that familiar idea and puts the recording hardware on your wrist.

It's a tiny AI voice recorder designed to capture real-world conversations on demand, and it's even small enough to clamp to the wristband of an Apple Watch, although it does come with its own fabric band in the box.

One press starts recording and another stops it, so it is not an always-listening device. Once the audio has transferred to the Memoket app, cloud-based AI produces a transcript, summary and action points.

Its headline feature is what Memoket calls cross-conversation memory. Rather than treating every recording as an isolated event, the software identifies related topics from earlier conversations and links them together.

In theory, this means a discussion today can be shown alongside a relevant meeting from several weeks ago without the user having to tag or search for it manually.

It was launched last month, and it's already available on Amazon, priced at £199 - and there's a starter plan included that offers 300 minutes of transcription a month. You don't need to pay anything monthly, but you can upgrade if it suits.

What I like about the Memoket Gem

It's difficult to emphasise just how neat and convenient the Gem is. As a piece of hardware it's designed to be discreet and comfortable, and it definitely is that. It weighs just 11g, about the weight of a £2 coin.

You can wear it on your wrist, on a pendant, buy a little clip for it, or just sit it on a desk.

There are two built-in microphones that capture what's being said around you, and the detail is quite astounding.

It automatically distinguishes who's speaking and then separates the conversation so you can follow it on a transcription, which is fired across to the Memoket app really quickly.

The quality and reliability of the note-taking is seriously impressive, and it can even pick up conversations from a headset, it's that sensitive.

It's simple to use, too. A single press of the record button starts a session, accompanied by one short vibration and a solid red light. Pressing it again stops the recording and produces two short vibrations. The light also communicates charging, pairing, file transfers, firmware updates and errors.

Recordings transfer automatically over Bluetooth while the Gem is connected to the app, including when the app is working in the background. A Wi-Fi Fast Transfer or Boost Mode can be enabled manually for longer files.

All this makes it a doddle to understand, and a doddle to work with. And in an office environment, that's exactly what you need.

What I didn't like about the Memoket Gem

I feel like I'm nit-picking now, but it's my job to do that, so I will. It's fair to say the £199 price is quite hefty. And if you want to upgrade the plan to "Pro", which includes 1,500 minutes, that would cost $17.99 per month, or $99.96 per year. And that would make it quite an expensive investment for heavy users.

There's an unlimited plan for $29.99 monthly or $239.88 for a year, which is perhaps better value but still a lot of money.

There's no water resistance, and there are certain features billed as "coming soon", which is increasingly typical of a freshly-launched tech product. There’s also a conversation to be had around the ethics and legality of covert recording, which is something that's entirely possible with the Memoket Gem if someone obscures its little red light.

But none of these are deal-breakers, of course, and it's more down to how you'll use it and what you want to get out of it.

Overall verdict: should you buy a Memoket Gem

I think the conclusion here is down to your personal use case. There are very cheap ways of taking notes through AI these days, even free ways, and they're surprisingly good.

What could swing the dial with the Memoket Gem is its simplicity, its minimalism, and the brilliant software it uses.

It's one of those devices that grows on you more the more you use it, and that might also be its undoing for some people, because the subscriptions are expensive, and just five hours per month on the free plan won't be enough for some people.

But it remains one of the best AI note-takers out there, so the price will perhaps justify itself once you put it to the test.