Back at IFA a few months ago, Anker announced the Soundcore Work, which is an AI recorder that is super small and wearable. When Anker first introduced this in a pre-IFA briefing, I was pretty excited. As a journalist who attends a ton of launch events – including CES , MWC , and IFA every year – a recorder like this is really useful. It’s one of the main reasons why I still carry a Google Pixel; Google’s Recorder app was simply the best at recording and transcribing.
At least it was.
Anker was supposed to send this out back in September, but some sort of mix-up happened, so it didn’t arrive until December. And I’ve been using it a ton. Those of you in the industry know that December is full of many, many pre-briefings for CES. Of course, I can’t share any of those recordings right now since they’re all under embargo. But I can talk about how well it performed, and I did record a lecture at the University of Michigan that I can share.
Anker just dropped a $159 AI recorder that makes Plaud look overpriced and Google’s Recorder app look lazy.
Pros
- Compact, wearable design
- Good audio quality
- Thoughtful hardware touches
- Clever charging case
- Find My support
- No subscription required
Cons
- No Android Find My equivalent
- Case doesn’t charge wirelessly
- Data not cloud-backed
- Free tier may not be enough for heavy users
Anker’s Soundcore Work is small but mighty
The actual recorder is about the size of a coin, though it is a bit thicker. There are two microphones on the recorder that enable pretty good sound quality, even from far away. This is thanks to how the microphones are positioned on the recorder, so that the audio is crisp and clear. This also makes it easier for the AI to transcribe and summarize the recording.
The recorder also has magnets built-in, so you can easily clip it onto your clothing and record everything. There’s a button on the side that you push to start and stop recording. The button does depress so you can instantly see that it’s on. On top of that, there is also an orange-yellow light that appears when it is recording. Another nice touch is that the recorder will vibrate when you start or stop a recording. Anker really has thought of everything here.
There is a small case for the recorder that actually has a pretty killer feature built in. So this is a pretty flat case that the recorder snaps into place on. It can be used attached to the case or separately too. Obviously, the case will charge the recorder, but on top of that, it has a magnet built-in which can attach to MagSafe or Qi2 phones. Making it really easy to carry around. Now it does not charge from MagSafe or Qi2, maybe Anker can add that in the next iteration.
On the case, there is a USB-C port on the bottom for charging, along with three LED lights to indicate the battery level and a button to turn on those LED lights.
But perhaps the best part of the Soundcore Work? Find My support. If you’re an iPhone user, the Soundcore Work does include Find My support, so you can easily find your recorder if you did misplace it somewhere. That’s a really nice feature to have. My only complaint here is that Anker needs to also include support for the Google Find Hub for Android users.
Anker does sell the Soundcore Work in both black and white. With the black color, it does tend to show grease from your fingers very easily. I’m not sure if that is the same case for the white model.
Anker’s Soundcore app makes using the Soundcore Work a breeze
Obviously, hardware is pretty important. But so is the software, especially on an AI recorder. Anker’s Soundcore app is what you’ll be using for this product. It’s pretty easy to set up and get connected to. And the app interface is surprisingly pretty straightforward.
Within the app, on the main page you’ll see a list of devices you have paired to your account. In my case, it’s only the Soundcore Work. You can immediately click on the recorded files, or wait a second for it to connect and tap on the device. It’ll show you the battery level for the recorder and the case.
If you tap on that upper part of the screen, you’ll be taken to the device info page, which has a lot of useful information. Including showing how much space is on the recorder. Anker has included 8GB of storage here, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but for recording audio, that’s a ton of space. That’s enough to record 268 hours of audio, which is a little over 11 days of recording for 24 hours straight.
Also worth mentioning is that once audio is synced with the app, it is removed from the recorder. So, that 8GB of storage is definitely way more than you’ll ever need. Anker also does not back up your data to the cloud here. All recordings are saved on your device. So if you uninstall the Soundcore app, you’ll lose it. You can use the “Data Migration” feature in the app to move data to a new device, however.
AI features that rival the big brands
Obviously, Anker (Soundcore) is not the first company to come out with an AI-based recorder. Another big name that comes to mind is of course, Plaude. And I have to say, Anker did really good with its first AI recorder. This does come in at $159 (though it is currently $99 at the time of writing this), and for that price, I think you’re getting a lot here.
Let’s talk about the AI features. Of course, there’s transcription. This is nothing new, but Soundcore Work can also generate AI Summaries and Anker has quite a few templates available. I typically keep it on the “Intelligent Identification” and it does a pretty good job. But there are also templates for Meetings, Discussion, Reports, Tasks, Interviews and much more.
What I really like about these AI Summaries is how accurate they are, and how well the formatting is. For instance in these CES Pre-Briefings I’ve been in, there are obviously talk about new products and embargo dates. Soundcore Work is able to bring that altogether, and in briefings where multiple products had different embargo dates, it was able to show that on a per-product basis. Which is extremely helpful. It also was able to grab context about CES, for instance, a company talking about where their booth is and other events they’ll be hosting in Las Vegas, Soundcore Work was able to bring that into a specific section too.
As if that wasn’t enough, you can also export the Summary and/or the Transcription into a PDF and share with someone. Here’s what the PDF looks like . You also have options to export it as a txt file, markdown, DOCX or a PDF.
The Summary can be quite long, the PDF linked above is about 12 pages, summarizing about 44 minutes of audio. So it’s not a quick summary of some stuff that happened in an hour-long meeting. It does a great job including everything.
What really makes the Soundcore Work stand out for me is that it’s not just transcribing and summarizing, it’s making it so much easier to understand and skim when needed.
Should you buy the Anker Soundcore Work?
The big question is whether you should buy the Anker Soundcore Work, and I think this depends on what you do for a living. Sure, it’s good for remembering ideas, but I’m not sure it’s worth the $159 price tag for just reminding yourself about things. If you sit in a lot of meetings, briefings, interviews, like I do, then it is more than worth the money. I’d happily pay over $200 for this product, with how well it works. And since it uses a lot of AI, it’s going to get even better.
What really sets the Anker Soundcore Work apart from competitors like Plaude AI, is the fact that there’s no subscription needed. Now there is a subscription available in the Soundcore app, but it’s not required.
Anker does have a Pro ($15.99/month, $99/year) and Unlimited ($239/year) plan, but if you don’t use the recorder a ton, you can stick to the Starter plan, which is free. On the Starter Plan, you do get 300 minutes of monthly transcription allowance. Which is around 5 hours of audio. With all of the briefings I’ve been in this month, I’m pretty shocked I did not surpass that amount, but I did come very close. There are also a few other features included in the Pro and Unlimited plans that might be worth it. Pro gets you 1,200 minutes of transcription monthly, and Unlimited is well, unlimited. These two plans also come with Aggregate Summary and Ask AI features. Otherwise, they are the same as the Starter plan.
I can’t sing Anker’s praises anymore than I already am. This is a fantastic product. It’s easy-to-use, the AI works as intended, and it has a number of common-sense features. And no, Anker did not pay for any coverage here. Anker only provided a review unit of the Soundcore Work.
