The complete rundown
What each one does, what it doesn’t, whether it’s open source, and who owns it now. Every entry is measured against the Limitless Pendant, because that’s the device most people reading this are about to lose. Checked 2 September 2026.
All of them at once
Dead products stay in the table rather than being tidied away. In this category the graveyard is the most useful column.
| Device | Price | Owner | Status | Open source | Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OmiBased Hardware | $179 | Independent | Active | Yes — fully | Free tier is real. Unlimited $269/yr |
| Limitless PendantLimitless | No longer sold | Meta | No | Free for existing owners until it ends | |
| BeeBee | $49.99 | Amazon | Amazon-owned | No | No compulsory plan |
| Plaud NotePin SPlaud | $179 | Independent | Active | No | Free 300 min/mo · Pro $99.99/yr · Unlimited $239.99/yr |
| FriendAvi Schiffmann | $249 | Independent | Active | No | $10/mo to remember beyond 30 days |
| FieldyFieldy | See maker | Independent | Active | No | See maker |
| Humane AI PinHumane | — | HP | Dead 28 Feb 2025 | No | — |
| RewindLimitless | — | Meta | Dead 19 Dec 2025 | No | — |
Open the sortable comparison chart →
Sort by price, subscription, first-year total, battery or openness — and click any row for pros and cons. Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen. Prices and stock read from each maker’s own store on 2 September 2026.
One at a time
The open-source pendant. The only one that survives its own company — and the only one that will adopt a Limitless Pendant.
Read the rundown →LimitlessAcquired by Meta and switched off at the end of 2026. Export your history, then rescue the hardware.
Read the rundown →Bee Amazon-owned$49.99 and about a week per charge — the best battery here. Amazon bought it in July 2025.
Read the rundown →Plaud ActiveThe most reliable, best-documented output in the category — and a real subscription to match.
Read the rundown →Avi Schiffmann ActiveAn AI companion rather than a recorder. Included for completeness, because people keep confusing the two.
Read the rundown →Fieldy ActiveA straightforward buy-it-and-go option for people comfortable with a phone app.
Read the rundown →Humane Dead 28 Feb 2025HP bought Humane and killed the Pin. Cloud off, features gone, data erased. The clearest warning in the category.
Read the rundown →Limitless Dead 19 Dec 2025Killed on 19 December 2025 as part of the Meta acquisition. No transition, no successor.
Read the rundown →Also in the field
We haven’t used these closely enough to write a full rundown, so here they are honestly and in one line rather than padded out.
Plaud’s larger recorder rather than the wearable pin — widely rated best-in-class for audio quality. Closed, same subscription structure as the NotePin. Check the maker for current pricing.
A wearable that feeds the Notta transcription workflow. Sensible if you already live in Notta; closed, and it ties you to that ecosystem.
Bluetooth earphones with recording built in, aimed at calls rather than ambient capture of a whole day. A different job from everything above.
Closed, and we have seen nothing to suggest it addresses the ownership problem. We do not recommend it for the memory-support use we work in.
The pattern
Read the ownership column downward and the story tells itself. Humane was bought by HP and killed within days. Rewind was shut off outright. Limitless was bought by Meta and put on a timer that runs out on 31 December. Bee was absorbed into Amazon.
Three of the best-known devices in this category now belong to Meta, Amazon or HP. Three are dead or dying. That is not a run of bad luck — it is what happens to small companies sitting on valuable personal data.
Which makes the open-source column the one worth reading first. Omi is the only device here whose hardware designs, firmware, app and server software are all published. If it were bought tomorrow, the code would still exist and your pendant would still work. Everything else on this page is a bet that the company outlives your interest in the product, and the record above says that is a poor bet.
We build the Keeper on open hardware for exactly that reason, so weigh what we say accordingly — and check the makers’ own sites, which we have linked on every page.
Still deciding
If you own a Limitless Pendant, start with what happens next or the conversion guide.
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