Memsist › Omi guide › How to use it
A tutorial, for after setup
Your Omi is charged and paired. Now what? This is the everyday part: what the button and lights mean, how to wear it, where your conversations go, how to ask it about your day, and how to keep it private. Written for people living with memory loss and the families who help them, in plain words and short steps.
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Read it top to bottom once, then come back to the part you need. Nobody has to learn all of this in one sitting.
1 · The short version
Omi is a small wearable made by Based Hardware. It has two microphones and talks to your phone over Bluetooth. While you wear it, it listens. The Omi app on your phone turns what it hears into written conversations, each with a short summary. From those, it pulls out memories (facts worth keeping, like "the grandkids visit on Sundays") and tasks (things someone said they would do).
Later you can scroll back through the day, search for something, or simply ask, in ordinary words: "What did the doctor say about my new pill?"
The phone does a lot of the work. That means two things are worth remembering from day one: the phone should stay nearby, and the Omi app should stay running in the background. You can switch to another app or lock the phone; just don't swipe the Omi app away.
Put it on in the morning. Charge it at night. Keep the phone close. Ask it questions when you want to remember.
3 · Power
The Omi comes with a magnetic wireless charging puck. Set the device on the puck, plug the puck into any USB power adapter or a laptop, and look for the light. On a very first charge, the light can take two or three minutes to appear, so give it a moment before deciding something's wrong.
Omi's documentation puts battery life at roughly a day to a few days, depending on the model and how much it hears. Recent firmware updates have stretched it: one in January 2026 promised more than 15 hours of daily use, and one in April 2026 offered up to three days for people who opt in from the app's device settings. Your own mileage will depend on how chatty your days are.
We still recommend charging every night. A nightly habit is easier to keep than "every two or three days", and a device that dies at 4 pm misses the evening, which is often when the important family conversations happen.
4 · Where it sits
Most disappointing transcripts are not a broken device. They're a muffled one. A few small habits fix nearly all of it.
There's also a wrist band accessory if the necklace isn't comfortable. The same rule applies: keep the microphones uncovered.
5 · What happens to what it hears
You don't have to press anything for this part. It happens on its own while the light is blue.
The Omi listens and streams the sound to the phone. On the app's home screen you can watch the words appear as they're spoken.
When nobody has spoken for a while (the app waits about two minutes by default), Omi decides the conversation has ended. You can change how long it waits in the profile settings.
A few minutes later a new entry appears in your list, with a title, a summary, key points, the full transcript, and any to-dos it noticed.
Facts that seem personally important (people, places, preferences, plans) are saved as Memories, each linked back to the conversation it came from.
Three things are good to know:
Recent versions of the app also sort conversations into folders automatically, and you can make your own. Within a conversation, tapping a line of the transcript jumps to that moment in the audio, when audio is available.
6 · Looking back
The home screen shows your conversations newest first. Scroll down to go back in time. For anything older, use search.
There is also a web version at home.omi.me, with the same conversations and chat. A big computer screen can be much easier for an evening review than a phone.
7 · The best part
The chat is where Omi earns its keep. Open the chat from the home screen and type, or tap the device once and say your question out loud. Omi looks through your conversations, memories and tasks and answers in plain sentences.
Omi's own guidance says it's best at questions with a time in them, and that it searches by meaning, so you don't need the exact words. Questions like these work well:
The app also has a setting to speak answers aloud. Its choices are off, headphones only (the default), or always. For someone who finds small text hard, "always" can make the spoken question and answer feel like talking to a person.
8 · Things to do
When someone says "I'll call the pharmacy tomorrow" or "remind me to bring the photos", Omi can turn that into a task. You'll find them on the Tasks tab.
For memory support, we suggest keeping the task list short and reviewing it together in the evening. A long list of half-right to-dos is more worrying than helpful. Delete freely.
9 · The end of the day
Since early 2026, Omi writes an automatic recap at the end of each day and shows it on the home screen. By default it sends a notification at 10 pm local time. You can change that time in the settings.
We like moving it earlier, to just after dinner, so the recap arrives when a family member is around to read it together. It's a natural starting point for the evening review in the first-week routine below.
10 · Extras
Omi has its own app store, on the Apps tab. Apps are add-ons, many built by the community, that do extra things with your conversations. Omi's help centre groups them into three kinds:
The chat can also connect to some outside accounts, such as Google Calendar and Gmail, so you can ask "what's on my calendar tomorrow?" in the same place. Recent versions also add Apple Health, for questions about sleep.
Every app you turn on can see your conversations. Read what each one says it uses before you enable it, and start with none or one. For most families, the built-in summary, chat, tasks and recap are plenty. You can disable or remove an app from the same Apps screen.
11 · Who said what
Out of the box, the transcript labels people as "Speaker 0", "Speaker 1" and so on. A speech profile teaches Omi how the wearer sounds, so their words are labelled with their name.
You can also tag other people in conversations, which helps it recognise them over time. Omi is honest that telling voices apart is hard for every system, and it won't be perfect. Speech profile recognition has historically been English-only, so check the app if you speak another language at home.
One more useful setting: custom vocabulary. Add the names it keeps getting wrong (family, doctors, the street you live on, medication names) and it will spell them right more often.
12 · Keeping it yours
A memory aid is only kind if the person wearing it stays in charge. These are the levers you actually have.
By default, Omi sends what it hears to its own cloud to be transcribed and summarised. Its privacy policy says audio is used for processing and not kept afterwards unless you switch on audio storage, while transcripts and summaries are stored, encrypted, in its cloud. You have a few ways to keep more at home:
Phone permissions matter too. The app asks for microphone, Bluetooth, notification and sometimes location access (location is used to tag where a conversation happened). A newer Permissions Manager in the settings lets you review them in one place. Turn off anything you don't want.
For the bigger picture, see our guide to privacy and lifelogging.
13 · Other people
An Omi records everyone in earshot, not just the wearer. That calls for a little courtesy, and sometimes the law requires it.
Texas is a one-party consent state: you can generally record a conversation you're taking part in. Several other states, including California, Florida and Illinois, require everyone's consent. If you travel, or call relatives in those states, it's different. Our guide to recording laws for lifeloggers sets it out plainly. It's general information, not legal advice.
14 · Fixes
Nearly every problem is one of three things: it needs charging, it needs to reconnect, or the app was closed. Try these before you worry.
If it needs to be paired from scratch, follow the pairing step in our setup guide.
Almost always a wearing problem. Move it outside clothing, higher on the chest, facing out. Test again with the same kind of conversation so you're comparing like with like. Set up the speech profile and add tricky names to custom vocabulary.
Check the phone's notification settings for the Omi app, and that the app is allowed to run in the background. Signing out and back in sometimes clears it.
Omi support is at help@omi.me, and the help centre has more fixes. The Omi Discord is often fastest. Or text us. Helping people with exactly this is what we do, in person, in Central Texas.
15 · A gentle start
One small thing a day. The aim is a habit, not mastery. If a day doesn't happen, skip it; nothing breaks.
On in the morning, on the charger at night beside the phone. Don't open the app much. The only goal is the habit.
After dinner, sit down together and scroll through the day's conversations. Fix one title that's wrong. Fifteen minutes, then stop.
Set up the speech profile in a quiet room. Tag one or two people the wearer talks to most.
Try one easy, time-anchored question: "What did I talk about this morning?" Tap the citation to see where the answer came from.
Open Tasks together. Tick what's done, delete what's wrong. Keep the list short enough to read in one glance.
Read the daily recap together, and move its notification to the time you usually sit down in the evening.
Decide together, out loud, who looks at the record and when. Set double tap to pause. Delete anything that shouldn't be kept.
Ten minutes, same time each day, side by side. Start with the recap. Ask the wearer what they'd like to remember from today, and star it. Glance at the tasks. Then put the phone down.
Let the wearer hold the phone and do the asking where they can. The point is a person reconnecting with their own day, not a family member checking up on them.
Families caring for someone with memory loss may also find our caregiver toolkit and how to talk to someone with memory loss useful alongside this.
16 · Watch it in use
Seeing the app on a real screen helps. These are recent, in English, and each one checked to make sure it plays here. Tap to play; nothing loads from YouTube until you do.
More reviews in our Omi video library. Apps change quickly, so a menu in a video may look slightly different on your phone.
17 · Quick answers
While it's on and connected, yes. It listens, and the app turns what it hears into conversations after a pause in talking. To stop it, set double tap to pause and resume in the device settings, or hold the button for about three seconds to turn it off.
No. The free plan includes unlimited on-phone transcription and a monthly allowance of cloud minutes (300 a month when we checked omi.me in October 2026). Paid plans raise or remove the cloud limit. Reaching the limit doesn't stop recording.
Roughly a day to a few days, depending on the model, the firmware and how much it hears. A spring 2026 update offered up to three days for people who opt in. Charging nightly is the simplest habit.
Blue: connected. Red: on but not connected. Blinking red: waiting to get the time from the phone. Blinking green: charging. Solid green: full. See the button and the lights.
Omi waits for silence before closing a conversation, then takes a few minutes to write it up. Check the light is blue, the app hasn't been swiped closed, and the phone is online.
Only by signing in to the wearer's account or looking at their phone. Agree together who looks and when, and do the evening review side by side.
Texas is a one-party consent state, so recording a conversation you're part of is generally allowed. Other states differ. Telling people is good manners either way. See our recording laws guide. This is general information, not legal advice.
Yes. Delete a single conversation or memory from its own screen, or use the option in settings to delete everything on the account.
18 · Where this came from
Checked on 27 October 2026. Omi updates its app often; if something here doesn't match your screen, the primary sources win.
Rather have a person show you
Memsist sets up and teaches Omi in your home, in Central Texas, at whatever pace suits. Text us and say what you're trying to do.
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