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Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

> How long does the battery last?

> Roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording. On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That’s up to 2 years of usage.

Two years isn’t too bad, but at $99 the price is still a bit high for that.

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It's pretty bad when you consider that you have to limit it to just this use-case (3-6 second recordings 10-20 times a day), when it could have instead been useful for other things e.g. recording much longer thoughts or making notes while reading a book or watching a video.

Even for just the narrow use-case, 2 years is still pretty poor. I generally expect my tech to last a lot longer than that.

this seems to be optimised for the use case where you just want to record something quickly; if you wanted a longer recording session the up front overhead of pulling out a dictaphone or something wouldn't be too bad, and you would have better ergonomics than holding a button pressed and your hand to your face.

I still would have preferred it to be serviceable. I know I'll be able to buy new batteries in 6 years, 10 years, etc. I'm suspect as to whether you'll still be able to buy this device in that time ("this device" meaning same comfortable fit, no new onboard bloat, compatible with my other ancient but beloved devices, similar focus on doing one simple thing well, privacy characteristics, etc). Apropros of nothing, is repebblering.com available?

If it keep me from having to take out my phone, which both a) I don't want to do for my own sanity and b) I don't want to do in many social situations out of respect for my companions, then it may be worth it. You could say "but Apple watch" however a big swath of society already hates those for the same reasons above

... and then they go on to say there's no subscription involved.

At $99 every 2 years it might as well be a subscription.

Not even just a flat-fee subscription, but technically a usage based one! Since every time you activate the device it consumes power stored in the battery, it essentially turns electricity into credits and now your hardware-based device is a usage based subscription. What a time to be alive!

Sure the world was destroyed but at one beautiful point in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.

Brilliant way to look at it. We already do this with phones

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