Bee, the personal AI company Amazon bought last year, has introduced two new devices that listen to conversations and turn them into summaries, reminders and to-do lists. The Bee Frontier is worn on the wrist or clipped to clothing. The Bee Eclipse is a card-sized unit that attaches magnetically to the back of a phone. Announced on October 15, they mark Bee’s first new products since it became part of Amazon.
The Bee Frontier costs $74.99 and is on sale now at Amazon.com in Onyx, Lavender and Sage. Amazon calls it the next generation of the Bee wearable that began with the Bee Pioneer. It is rated IP67 for water resistance, runs for up to seven days on a charge, charges over USB-C and has two noise-filtering microphones. The Bee Eclipse will follow soon, priced from $99.99 in Silver, Midnight, Honey and Blush, with more than 21 days of battery life on a single charge.
A single button switches both devices on and off, and a light shows when they are working. The Frontier can also be set to turn itself off when no sound has been picked up for a set period. Summaries appear in the redesigned Bee mobile app. With a paid plan, Bee can connect to Gmail, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook to list action items, draft follow-up emails and create calendar invitations after a meeting.
The launch also links Bee to Alexa+ and Amazon.com. Owners can ask an Echo speaker for a meeting summary or their to-dos. Items mentioned in conversation can appear as product suggestions on the Amazon homepage. The devices run on what Amazon calls Bee Private Compute: audio is processed in real time, then deleted, and transcripts are encrypted with keys that only the user’s device creates and controls. With the Eclipse, users are prompted to get permission from the people on a call each time recording starts.
Every buyer gets conversation summaries, recaps and 14 days of memory at no extra charge. A Bee Pro subscription at $11.99 a month adds unlimited recent summaries, the Alexa+ and Amazon.com links, third-party integrations, suggested to-dos, daily memories, a personal chat assistant, conversation templates and a new desktop app. New customers get the first 30 days free. Both Bee devices are priced below rival recorders such as the Plaud Note, at $159, and the Pocket, at $129.
