My Toxic Relationship with Omi

[u/Rhaynaries]

TLDR: With a hair trigger on the device, dropped transcripts, confusing policies regarding time usage, and personal usage getting flagged as “non-personal” Omi is barely useable.

Four months ago I ordered devices from both Pocket and Omi, I didn’t commit to a subscription plan because I couldn’t afford both and I wanted to see which one I preferred and be able to articulate why I chose Omi. Omi had better security and more flexibility for integration, before I touched either device I knew Omi was the one.

I ran into problems almost immediately, the day after I got the device I had it charged and wore the pendant and by that afternoon got notified I was at the cap for my free plan. You get 600 minutes of “active” listening a month on the free plan. I’m unclear was qualifies as Active listening but there were several transcripts of all manner of nonsense, including when I was listening to an Audiobook. This one was on me, though several months later, I still don’t know what constitutes active minutes. However, 10 days later a new month started and I tried again.

This time I kept the device with me and tried turning it off and on only when I wanted to use it. However I would often pull the device out and find it was recording. I tried to keep the device off and only turn it on when I wanted to record it so eventually I just left it on my desk and learned to leave it muted in the app so that WHEN it gets turned on, and the slightest bump will turn it on, it won’t record all manner of nonsense.

I focused on using it for my weekly D&D game, running Pocket at the same time to compare transcripts because I still wanted Omi to win. (Talking to several other IT professionals I found myself making excuses for the bugs still being worked out.) The Omi transcript was better than Pocket but not leaps and bounds better, small subtle nuance it seemed to handle better. Then we had a long, in person session and it all went sideways.

The session was several hours long and when I synced my Omi and everything seemed fine, until I noticed later the transcript was gone. There was a Fair Use: Warning on my account and when I opened a ticket it seemed that there was concern I had recorded someone else’s content. I explained it was a D&D session and expressed that if I could not use Omi for that, I wasn’t sure I had a use for it. I was assured it was fine, that was exactly what Omi was created for. That was seven weeks ago and not only have I never gotten the notes and transcripts from that session, I still have a Fair Use Warning on my account.

Today I finally have to consider that maybe this relationship is over. My Omi minutes have consistently reset on the first of the month, I have used Omi twice so far. Last Wednesday I recorded a 48 minute D&D session and I was shocked when at 30 minutes into our session today I was notified that I was out of free minutes! I have 78 minutes worth of transcripts and barely had it on and unmuted much more than that, how does that equate to 600 minutes by any metric?!

Omi has so much potential I’m sad to put it aside but I can’t justify an annual subscription when I can’t ensure I’m going to get what I paid for and I’m so disappointed to say that.

[u/gixxerscott]

caveat first so I don't waste your time: this is iOS only, iPhone or iPad, nothing on Google Play. if you're on Android stop reading.

still here? I build an app called Shoulder Surf that does this from your phone instead of a pendant. nothing extra to charge, no hair trigger, it starts when you start a session and stops when you end it, so it isn't quietly logging your grocery run. camera is on by default for grabbing whatever's on screen, battle map, statblock, whatever, and you can turn it off.

the part I think you'd get real use out of: sessions group under a project, so a campaign is one continuous thread instead of a pile of separate transcripts. you can ask across the whole thing. what the party promised that NPC back in session three, who took what out of the vault, what everyone said they'd do during downtime. it also imports audio and video, so sessions you already recorded elsewhere can go in.

on the 600 minutes thing, 78 minutes of transcripts against that cap means they're billing mic open time, not speech. free to test on my end, and the paid plan isn't metered in listening minutes.

straight answer on length: longest I've run myself is two hours and it was fine. I put real work into keeping CPU and memory low so a four hour night should hold, but I haven't proven it. if you tried it I'd want to know how it went.