Nina Raemont/ZDNET
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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Stream Ring captures whispered thoughts and organizes them seamlessly.
- An Inner Voice feature responds in the user’s own synthesized voice.
- Stream Ring was designed for self-extension, enhancing memory, creativity, and organization.
The tech industry is betting that AI will replace humans’ creativity and cognition. Sandbar, however, is creating technology that supplements these things instead.
Sandbar is developing an AI-powered smart ring with a single and predominant use case. Its Stream Ring is an AI-powered note-taker and thought organizer that users can whisper into. The accompanying app organizes ideas and lists as the user talks. Then, the ring talks back, and, get this, does so in your own voice.
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“Thoughts bubble up constantly, especially when we’re on the go. I wanted to capture thoughts or discuss ideas without pulling out a phone or speaking into the void. Importantly, I wanted that experience to feel like inner dialogue, not a conversation with a virtual companion,” Mina Fahmi, CEO and co-founder of Sandbar, said in the product announcement’s press release.
Fahmi and co-founder Kirak Hong first collaborated at CTRL-Labs, where they developed neural interfaces that were later sold to Meta.
Is this the future of AI organizational companions?
I got to visit Sandbar’s Manhattan office, receive a demo of the Stream Ring, and see for myself.
The aluminum-clad ring resembles an average accessory, but features a flat crown that serves as a touchpad. Users press and hold it to their mouth to activate the AI. The ring must be pressed to activate the mic. Additionally, the touchpad can be used to control music playing in earbuds.
The Stream Ring is suitable for those with “an active inner world,” Fahmi says, trying to organize, process, or express themselves and the many bubbling thoughts they produce. It’s also a match made for Apple Notes app power users or those who already have familiarity using existing LLMs in a conversational manner.
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Fahmi controls his music and thinks through his day of meetings and their respective talking points with the ring while on the subway headed to work. During the workday, he might go for a walk and talk into the ring to thoroughly process ideas or events. One alpha user and marketing professor uses the ring to prep her teaching lesson as she drives and creates a note or agenda out of those thoughts.
Another talks into the device while watching her kids at the playground, because, unlike a phone or notepad, a user must look down at it to use, the ring and the accompanying app can be used without visual distraction.
When you call on Stream, it fulfills several actions at once, such as providing a response (connected to the web), deciding what to do, writing a note, and revising, regrouping, and reorganizing notes and memories. Different AI models power this variety of functionalities.
By talking through personal experiences, ideas, and plans, the ring and its accompanying app, where all these interactions are organized, serve as an extension of the self, Fahmi says. The Inner Voice, the voice that talks back to them during these interactions, is foundational to this idea.
When setting up the Stream Ring, users can choose to create their own Inner Voice or use a default voice that responds to them when initiated. I wanted to see what my Inner Voice sounded like, so I recorded myself reading a provided paragraph that Stream uses to generate that voice. Then, I heard myself speak back to myself. It was uncanny – and a little more monotone than my already-monotonous voice.
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Would people really get used to hearing their own voice speak back to them, I asked Fahmi? He said that the first few times people hear their Inner Voice, they are skeptical or discomfited, but then, within a few days of usage, they can’t use the device without it.
He stresses that Stream is not a reflection of the user but an extension of it. “We’re trying to give people themselves plus a little bit of whatever additional thing they need, an additional perspective, additional memory, empathy, or creativity.”
Stream’s approach to this AI-powered device stands in stark contrast to the other AI-powered wearables currently on the market. Fahmi acknowledges the fear people have of AI hardware and software, and that it poses a perceived threat to their own autonomy and control.
“I think the solution is to model something as you rather than another. People have their own wills, independent lives, goals, and perspectives. I don’t think machines should be that. I think most of the problems we’re seeing with how society is reacting to these machines comes from the fact that we’re putting so much effort into modeling them as humans that will talk over you and have their own desires and dreams and will push back,” Fahmi tells me.
Nina Raemont/ZDNET
Another important feature of the Stream Ring is its ability to capture words and requests clearly — regardless of sound level. Fahmi whispered near-inaudibly into the ring as he sat next to me, and the ring precisely captured his words in the app.
The controlling of the music device element seemed odd to me. Why did they include that component within the Stream Ring? Fahmi says that the ring is “the beginnings of a conversational interface” that gives the user tools and haptics to hold and pause the device, interrupt, or take actions quickly and silently.
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“It needs to coexist with audio and other audio apps,” Fahmi explains. Rarely does Fahmi use the Stream Ring with his phone open; he typically uses it with his earbuds in. “It’s in my pocket, and I’m listening to music,” he explains. “If the conversational interface broke my relationship to music, I wouldn’t use it.”
When I tested the ring out, I asked it to take notes on the meal I was about to make for my friends, to query it for article ideas, and to ask it questions about itself. The haptic feedback was pleasing and responsive to my touches. Fahmi showed me how the app autonomously crosses bullet points off lists you’ve asked it to create and reorganizes ideas in a seamless manner.
Bottom line (for now)
That organization piece compelled me most — what I want out of my technology is to take my existing ideas and plans and do the fine-tuning for me. Stream seems to do this easily. Every action and note taken was performed quickly and without error.
Stream Ring’s launch is slated for next year at $250, which includes three months of Stream Pro, offering unlimited interactions and early access to new features for free. After the trial period, the subscription costs $10 a month. The ring is designed for most environments, allowing you to shower with it and wash your hands without any issues. It’s not made for sleeping and boasts a battery life that should last all day. Preorders are now open.
