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Over the last few months, two AI gadgets have genuinely changed the way I work: the Plaud Note and the Insta360 Wave.

On paper they both sound similar, clever devices that record what’s being said and use AI to turn it into something useful. But in reality, they live in completely different worlds.

One lives in my pocket, attached to my phone, and comes with me when ideas strike in the car park, on a dog walk, or in a coffee shop.
The other lives proudly on my desk in Bristol, turning online meetings into something that feels far more professional and less chaotic.

If you’re wondering whether you should buy the Plaud Note AI, the Insta360 Wave, or even both, this deep-dive is for you. I’ll walk through what each device does, how I personally use them, and which one makes more sense depending on your job, lifestyle, and budget.

Two Different Takes on AI Productivity

What problem are these products trying to solve?

Plaud Note is built for personal capture: your thoughts, your calls, your lectures, your meetings. It’s your AI-powered voice recorder that lives with your phone and acts like an external brain.
Insta360 Wave is built for shared communication: hybrid meetings, online calls, conference rooms, and content that involves multiple people. It’s an AI-powered speakerphone that sits in the centre of the table (or on your desk) and pulls the whole conversation together.

They both use AI and transcription, but they don’t compete as much as people think. They complement each other.

Plaud Note – The Pocket-Sized Second Brain

Design and Build

Plaud Note looks nothing like a traditional voice recorder. It’s incredibly slim( roughly the footprint of a credit card) and is designed to sit on the back of your phone via a magnetic case or ring. That design choice is clever for one main reason: you actually carry it.

Instead of being another gadget that lives in a drawer, it becomes part of your everyday setup. You snap it on the back of your phone and it just lives there:

It slips into your pocket without bulking it up.
You can take it everywhere without thinking: school runs, coffee shops, client meetings, travel.
When you need to record something, it’s already with you – you don’t have to go and fetch anything.

The build feels solid despite the thin profile. The buttons are minimal, clearly defined, and placed so you can instinctively hit record without looking. It feels closer to a premium phone accessory than a nerdy piece of kit.

Core Features

Under that minimalist shell, Plaud Note is surprisingly powerful.

At its heart, it’s a high-quality voice recorder with AI baked in. You can:

Record in-person meetings
Record lectures and classes (where allowed)
Capture phone calls (with the proper consent and respecting local laws)
Dictate ideas, drafts, and notes as you go about your day

Once the recording is done, everything goes into the Plaud app, and this is where the AI takes over:

Automatic transcription: your recordings become text you can read, search, and skim.
AI summaries: instead of listening back to an hour-long discussion, you get a neat summary with key points.
Structured templates: you can choose formats like meeting notes, interview recap, lecture notes, bullet list of action points, etc.
Highlight markers: with a simple tap while you’re recording, you can mark “important moments” that the AI treats as key sections later.

If you’ve ever finished a brilliant conversation and then realised you remember only 60% of it, this device makes a lot of sense.

Who Plaud Note Is Perfect For

From my own use and from imagining how others live and work, I see Plaud Note shining in these scenarios:

Students (where permitted):
Lectures, seminars, revision sessions:all turned into clear notes instead of messy scribbles. It’s especially helpful if you struggle to write fast enough or you prefer to listen and engage in the moment.
Solo business owners & freelancers:
Coaches, consultants, therapists, photographers, designers… if you spend your day in conversations, Plaud Note gives you a searchable archive of your work and your ideas.
Content creators on the move:
If you’re constantly coming up with hooks, scripts and concepts while walking, commuting or travelling, dictating into Plaud Note is so much more natural than staring at a blank page.
Busy professionals:
Sales calls, one-to-one meetings, performance reviews, you can stop taking aggressive notes and just have a more human conversation, knowing that the important bits are captured.

For my own blogging life, it’s become a sort of external hard drive for my brain. I use it to “talk through” a blog post before I ever touch the keyboard, then let the AI produce a structured outline I can refine.

Limitations of Plaud Note

No device is perfect. A few things to keep in mind:

It’s not made to capture huge boardrooms with ten people sitting far away. It can do group recordings, but its natural strength is 1:1 conversations, small groups, and personal notes.
Charging is done with its own cable, not a standard USB-C port, so you do have to keep track of that.
You need to respect call recording and privacy laws where you live. The device doesn’t solve that for you.

Still, for individuals who live in a world of ideas and conversations, it’s a powerful little companion.

Insta360 Wave: The AI Speakerphone for the Hybrid Office

If Plaud Note is the personal note-taker, Insta360 Wave is the charismatic meeting host.

Design and Presence

The stunning Wave is designed to live on a desk or meeting table, and it absolutely looks the part.

It’s a cylindrical tower that “wakes up” when you turn it on: the top rises, a circular display appears, and you’re greeted with a clean, modern interface. It feels polite but confident: a piece of tech you wouldn’t be embarrassed to put in a boardroom.

Because it’s meant to stay in one place, it doesn’t try to be super slim or phone-sized. That extra space is used for:

A serious multi-mic array designed to pick up voices around a room
A proper speaker that makes voices sound full and clear
A battery that can handle long meetings without being tethered constantly

You can move it between rooms, but it’s not something you’d put in your pocket. It belongs on a table.

Audio & Call Experience

Insta360 Wave is, first and foremost, a speakerphone. So the audio matters.

The design is built around picking up multiple voices around a table and making sure everybody can hear and be heard. That means:

Strong voice pickup, even from people sitting further away
Echo cancellation so you don’t hear your own voice bounce back
Noise reduction to minimise typing, aircon noise, or background hum
A speaker tuned to voices, not music, so speech is clear and easy to follow

If you’re used to the tinny sound of laptop microphones and cheap headsets, the jump in quality is noticeable. Meetings simply feel calmer when everyone sounds clear.

The AI Side – Transcripts, Notes & Recaps

Just like Plaud Note, the Wave doesn’t stop at recording.It works with Insta360’s AI platform to:

Transcribe entire meetings
Identify different speakers
Build summaries with key decisions, action items, and topics
Allow you to search through past meetings later

This is incredibly useful if your days are full of online calls and Teams/Zoom meetings. Instead of finishing a long call and trying to remember what was decided, you have a structured view of what actually happened.

It’s especially powerful in companies where you need to share recaps with people who couldn’t attend, or keep a record of decisions over time.

Wave + Webcam = Mini Studio

One of the big differences between the Wave and Plaud Note is what happens when you add a webcam into the picture.

The Insta360 Wave is designed to pair beautifully with the Insta360 Link 2 webcam. Together, they form a kind of mini “studio” for your desk:

Wave handles audio and AI meeting capture.
Link 2 handles sharp, flattering video with face-tracking and smart framing.

For:

Remote professionals who spend all day on camera
Team leaders who run hybrid meetings
Content creators hosting webinars, livestreams or workshops

…this combo is very compelling. Your desk suddenly looks and sounds like a proper setup instead of a blurry laptop camera and a crackly microphone.

Who Insta360 Wave Is Perfect For

In my opinion, the Wave really shines for:

Office workers in hybrid teams:
If your company has adopted hybrid working and half the team is at home while the other half is in a meeting room, the Wave makes life easier for both sides.
Managers and team leaders:
If you lead projects, run stand-ups, host client calls or manage international teams, having clean audio and AI-powered recaps is a huge time saver.
Content creators and educators:
Live workshops, remote teaching, Q&A sessions – all of these become smoother and more professional with a solid audio + AI setup.
Companies with multiple locations:
When your colleagues work from different cities or even different countries, the quality of your online meetings directly impacts how well you collaborate. The Wave is built exactly for that scenario.

Limitations of Insta360 Wave

Again, a few things to be aware of:

It’s overkill if you just have one Zoom call a week. This is a serious device for people who live in online meetings.
It’s not primarily designed for solo dictation on the move. You can record solo audio with it, but that’s clearly not the main use case.
It takes up space on your desk (in a nice way, but still something to consider if your workspace is tiny).

How I Use Both in Real Life

Plaud Note in My Day

Dog walks & commutes: I often outline articles, reviews, and video scripts while walking. Plaud Note lets me empty my head and keep my hands free.
Brainstorming sessions, when I’m planning content for the next month, I’ll talk through ideas instead of typing. The AI transcript becomes a messy but rich document I can refine.
One-to-one calls: if I’m talking to a brand about a collaboration (and everyone is OK with it being recorded), I capture those calls so I don’t miss the small details like product names, links, dates, coupon codes, etc.
Personal notes, sometimes I use it almost like an audio journal when I want to reflect on something.

It’s essentially my portable thinking tool.

Insta360 Wave in My Day

Professional meetings:when I have video calls with PR agencies, brand partners or other creators, the Wave lives right in the middle of it all. Everyone can hear me clearly, and I hear them clearly.
Hybrid-style chats: if I’m talking to more than one person on the other side, or they’re gathered around a conference table, the Wave’s multi-mic design makes everything sound more natural.
Long-term projects: when a collaboration involves multiple calls over weeks, having AI-generated transcripts and summaries helps me track what was agreed across different conversations.
Content & streaming (with a webcam): when I record more “formal” content from my desk, it’s nice to have professional-level audio without fiddling with traditional podcast-style microphones.

Here, the Wave is my meeting hub. It doesn’t leave the desk. It doesn’t want to. It’s built for that role.

Plaud Note vs Insta360 Wave – Direct Comparison

Portability

Plaud Note
- Ultra portable
- Designed to live on your phone
- Perfect for commuting, travel, campus, cafés
Insta360 Wave
- Desk or table-based
- Moveable between rooms, but not pocket-sized
- Best in one “home” location (office, meeting room, home office)

Winner: Plaud Note, easily, if portability is your priority.

Audio Capture Style

Plaud Note
- Focused on single-speaker or small-group capture
- Great when the recorder is close to you
- Ideal for lectures, 1:1 calls, and personal dictation
Insta360 Wave
- Designed for multiple voices around a room
- Strong pickup range and voice clarity at distance
- Ideal for hybrid meetings, conference rooms, and group calls

Winner: Insta360 Wave for meetings and group setups; Plaud Note for personal note-taking.

AI & Software

Plaud Note
- Geared towards individuals
- Templates for meetings, interviews, lectures, etc.
- Great for turning messy thoughts into structured notes
Insta360 Wave
- Geared towards teams and meetings
- Strong meeting summaries and action points
- Works hand-in-hand with conferencing and a webcam setup

Winner: It depends. Plaud Note wins for personal productivity; Wave wins for professional, team-based environments.

Use Cases

Insta360 Wave is better if:

You or your company rely heavily on online meetings.
There’s a work-from-home or hybrid policy in place.
You speak to people in different offices/countries every week.
You want to up your game in how professional you look and sound online.
You run webinars, online workshops, coaching sessions or interviews from a desk.

Plaud Note is better if:

You’re a student (and allowed to record lectures) who wants smarter notes.
You’re a solo entrepreneur or freelancer who needs to capture every important conversation.
You’re a content creator on the go who wants a better way to capture ideas and outlines.
You love the idea of replacing messy notebooks and half-finished notes apps with one simple, AI-powered voice tool.

Price & Value

Both are premium products, but they justify their prices differently.

Plaud Note feels like a smart investment in your own productivity. It’s a personal tool that can easily pay for itself if it helps you stay more organised, remember more from calls, and create content faster.
Insta360 Wave feels like an investment in how you and your team communicate. It makes sense when meetings are central to your job or your company culture, and when you want better-quality calls plus smart AI recaps.

If you’re an individual trying to decide where to start, Plaud Note is the more accessible entry point. If you’re upgrading a home office or small meeting room, the Wave is the more transformative purchase.

So… Which One Should You Get?

Get the Insta360 Wave if:

You live on Zoom, Teams, Meet or similar.
Your business or employer has embraced hybrid work.
You often speak with people in other cities or countries.
You’re tired of “Can you hear me okay?” at the start of every call.
You want your online presence to feel more professional and less improvised.

Get the Plaud Note if:

You’re constantly having ideas and rarely manage to capture them properly.
You attend a lot of lectures, talks, or training sessions and hate taking notes.
You run a small business and want a record of your calls without typing everything.
You’re a content creator who’s often away from the desk but still wants to brainstorm properly.

And If You’re Both a Creator and a Meeting Person?

Then, honestly, they make a fantastic pair.

Plaud Note handles your brainstorms, ideas, class notes, and one-to-one calls.
Insta360 Wave handles your big meetings, hybrid calls, webinars, and professional communication.

One lives on your phone, one lives on your desk. Both use AI to reduce the amount of “admin” in your life.

In a world where we’re all juggling more information than ever, that feels less like a luxury and more like a very smart way to work.

Final Verdict: Two Brilliant AI Devices, Two Very Different Lives

Both the Plaud Note and the Insta360 Wave have earned their place in my everyday life, but for completely different reasons.

The Plaud Note is the quiet one that lives in my pocket, almost invisible until I need it. It’s the tool I reach for when I’m walking the dog and outlining a new article, when I want to capture a call without missing details, or when I simply need to empty my brain into something smarter than a notebook.

The Insta360 Wave, on the other hand, is the centrepiece of my desk. It’s what I trust for calls with brands and PR teams, for longer hybrid-style meetings, and for those days when I need my online presence to look and sound as professional as possible.

If you decide to pick one up (or both), let me know in the comments how you’re using it. I’m genuinely curious to see how these AI tools fit into your daily routine.

The Plaud Note is available on Amazon.com (here) and on Amazon UK (here) . Full Review here

The Insta360 Wave is available at Insta360.com (click here) and on Amazon.com (here). Full Review here

Jerome.

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