I attend a lot of meetings and product briefings, and that’s especially true as we once again approach phone nonsense season. Normally, I just attend the briefing, take notes, and write down the highlights. If I’m conducting an interview, like the one about Arm’s neural gaming technology, I typically record the audio and transcribe it manually. That’s what takes the most time, and for the past six months, I’ve used an AI-assisted solution: Viaim’s RecDot headphones.
Now, there is no shortage of AI-assisted audio to text transcription services available, and you can do it on your phone too; This is one of the things I use the most in my Pixel 10 Pro XL. Viaim is one of many brands that are positioning AI-based products to do this automatically. I used applause note In the past I did something similar, but I like the idea of the Viaim RecDot better since it is not another thing that I have to carry with me.
The versatility of having headphones that record calls and meetings and automatically transcribe audio is very important and made a noticeable difference in my daily use. My favorite feature is the instant summaries, which provide key insights and takeaways from hours-long meetings; This saved me a good amount of time.
A pretty cool addition is FlashRecord, a feature that records conversations of up to four hours locally on the headset without needing your phone. You can also record when you’re not using the headphones by pressing a button on the case. There is also an AI-assisted translation feature that provides real-time translations. RecDot did a decent job with Hindi to English translations, but it didn’t work as well with Telugu (my native language) to English. That said, the headphones have the ability to translate between 78 languages, and that’s an interesting use case if you’re traveling abroad.
Image 1 of 6
The RecDot The headphones are available for $199.And while that’s quite a bit of cash, you get decent headphones even without the AI features. The buds have a standard design with a long stem and do not stand out much. They have shiny fur and the shell fits comfortably in the ear, and I didn’t notice any fatigue even with prolonged use. Weighing 4.8g, each bud is light enough that you won’t even notice it.
There are other subtleties; The RecDot has IP55 water and dust resistance, and the sound quality of the 11mm dynamic driver is much better than I imagined; It’s not going to topple Bose or Sony, but it’s clear that Viaim paid attention to the audio tuning. You get a boosted bass that makes listening to most modern music much more enjoyable, and while there isn’t much treble extension, the overall tonal characteristics are decent. You get Qi charging, Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and the earbuds connect to two devices at once.
There’s pretty good noise isolation, too, and the RecDot did a reasonable job of eliminating ambient sounds in my immediate vicinity. Again, although they were not as effective as my Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 HeadphonesThey’re good enough that I don’t mind wearing them while working at a coffee shop. You don’t get AptX codecs, but there is LHDC, which made a difference when using it with my Find X9 Ultra and X9Pro.
The Viaim app is what you’ll use to generate summaries and transcribe audio, and it’s pretty decent. I had issues with it crashing while using it on the Find X9 Ultra, but I had no issues with it on the iPhone 17 Pro, so that’s what I predominantly used with the buttons. The user interface itself is easy to navigate and all notes and transcribed text are easily accessible.
Overall, Viaim did a good job with the RecDot, and if you attend a lot of meetings and need an easy way to transcribe and summarize key takeaways, these headsets are a great choice.
RecDot uses AI to good effect, providing actionable insights from meetings and conferences. The headphones are pretty good on their own and you get decent audio quality and many of the extras that are standard in this category.
