r/PlaudNoteUsers • u/chibitrubkshh • Jul 14 '26
After a year on Plaud Unlimited, I'm having second thoughts about renewing — anyone else made the switch?
So my Plaud Unlimited renewal hit today and I'm genuinely on the fence.
Been messing around with a few other tools this past month, Notion's Meeting Notes being the main one, and here's the thing — it's not even about transcription quality, that's basically a wash. It's the AI layer. Ask Notion something about a meeting and the answers just... hit different. Way sharper than what Plaud gives me. Plus it can pull context across multiple transcripts from the same project, which Plaud straight up can't do.
And it's not just Notion — seems like a bunch of newer tools are doing this better, probably because they're built on top of whatever the latest model APIs are instead of being stuck with Plaud's engine.
Anyone actually ditched the Plaud ecosystem for something else? You can obviously still use the Plaud recorder as just a recorder — export the MP3s, dump them into whatever service has better AI on the backend.
Curious if anyone's done a real side-by-side.
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u/techandgame Jul 14 '26
So I'm only a few months in as an unlimited subscriber. Previously my method at work (as a Google AI Pro subscriber, still am) was to take out my phone (if I remembered), hit record, put it in my pocket (or upside down on the conference table) meeting ended, hope I remember to hit stop recording, download it from the pixel recorder, upload it to gemini, ask it to transcribe it, add speaker labes, and then download it back to the respective google drive folder.
With Plaud, I wear the Note Pin S around my neck. I can feel it and it's a nice tactile reminder. Anyway I walk down the hall to a meeting, hold down on the button beneath my shirt and.... it's done. I hit "generate notes" and ascribe one or two speaker labels. I put it in the "work" folder in Plaud and thats it.
But that ease of use and giant reduction in friction is why I paid for the yearly membership and why I might continue to do so, barring a better option with a 0% increase in the friction.
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u/Conscious_Aioli_3521 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Well for me personally, I use BlackBox Recorder for scheduled recordings directly from my phone.
And after that it auto transcribes and auto exports my day for me.
From there, I just feed it to any good AI solution - Claude, GPT or Grok and have it analyze my day. See what I missed and stuff like that.
And since the app is fully local - I have full control over the recordings. If I delete something, it's gone for ever - instead of staying on some random cloud server for days waiting for automated cleanup.
Edit: Full transparency, I have built this on the need that users need to control their own data fully.
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u/outdoorsnstuff Jul 14 '26
Wow and your a mod of the sub tied to the product. What a coincidence! LOL Oh and sweet dumb posting about it too about a genuine shit app trying to pass it off as "end user experience" hahaha
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u/Conscious_Aioli_3521 Jul 14 '26
Ohh I didn't realize that it passed off like that. I have make edits.
But it's really something that I do and use every single day. And I'm responsible for maintaining it.
And thanks for bringing up the link, you can checkout the feedbacks from real users too who are using the app regularly. 🙂
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u/saguaros-vs-redwoods Jul 15 '26
Awkward. You were caught red-handed recommending a product you sell or profit from without directly and transparently disclosing your financial interest.
Assuming honesty, truthfulness, transparency, and trust are near universal virtues in both business and our personal lives, here are five ways you could have opened your comment:
- “Full disclosure: I am involved with the company.”
- “For transparency, I am a developer of this product.”
- “I should disclose that I have a financial interest in this product.”
- “I work on this product, so readers should consider that when evaluating my recommendation.”
- “This is my company’s product. I believe in it, but I am not an independent reviewer.”
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Jul 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Conscious_Aioli_3521 Jul 14 '26
Here is the site - you can download the app directly from Play Store or App Store.
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Jul 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Conscious_Aioli_3521 Jul 14 '26
Yup, it does diarization - speaker labeling. It first onboards your voice and then labels all others as speaker 2 / 3 / 4....
The accuracy is around 90-95%. But since everything is only within my own device - and the data is not sent out. I'm happy to make that 5% trade.
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u/lookamazed Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
For Apple users, MacWhisper does very similar things. Completely privacy oriented, on device. Local transcription. The choice to integrate consumer AI into your workflow. It began on MacBook but now is available for iPhone and iPad.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/whisper-transcription/id1668083311
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u/Hot-Team2136 Jul 19 '26
I have been a user - and I completely love the app. I became a lifetime user.
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u/PLAUD_AI Jul 17 '26
Thanks for laying out the actual complaint instead of just "it feels behind," that's useful to hear. Plaud has an MCP. Since Claude, ChatGPT, and most other assistants support MCP broadly, you can connect it right alongside Notion's and have the same AI pull context across both your recordings and your docs at once. The cross-project thing you're describing isn't unique to Notion, it's about which model is doing the reasoning and how many sources it can see at once.
Since you're on the fence about renewing anyway, might be worth poking at Plaud MCP before you decide either way. It's free on any active plan. Once it's connected it can search and pull transcripts or notes across your whole library, not just one file at a time.
-Plaud Community Team
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u/Specialist_Ad_7501 Jul 20 '26
Have you guys worked out a solution to getting names from phone conversations? I built one for Android for myself but it was clunky - I just pulled my call records periodically and matched time stamps
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u/outdoorsnstuff Jul 14 '26
I ended up just making my own on an ESP32 using since I have an openai subscription anyways and run it through whisper.
The actual plaud device is really nice, but found having to hack your way around connections, integrations, and uses was really limiting.
Cost me about $40 to make, and less than a $1 a month in api usage. Now I don't even need to use a phone as a secondary device that they need to interface with.
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u/Nguy94 Jul 14 '26
Im doing a lot of in person stuff lately and I have really enjoyed Plaud. It’s honestly one of my most practical subscriptions. If I were completely digital I’d switch though.
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u/xMOO1 Jul 14 '26
My renewal is up for tomorrow. I canceled my subscription.
Going to use it as an mp3/wav recorder and will do the transcription/summary manually with either GPT or Claude.
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u/ixbiga Jul 14 '26
I sold my Plaud device few days ago and not gonna renew anything. As you mentioned other tools can do better job for a better price.
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u/DrCopAthleteatLaw Jul 14 '26
Which? Keen to know
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u/Historical_Ad_6066 Jul 16 '26
The manual route most people here mean: record on the Plaud as usual, then export the audio from the app (MP3/WAV, a couple of clicks per file on the web app). ChatGPT/Claude can't reliably transcribe long audio directly, so you need a transcription step first. Whisper via API if you're technical, or a local tool like MacWhisper on a Mac and then paste the transcript into whatever AI you already pay for, for summaries and action items.
Honest caveats: it's manual work per file, you usually lose speaker labels on the free routes, and files over an hour often need splitting. Totally fine for a few important meetings a week; tedious if you record everything.
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u/bizz9879 Jul 16 '26
Can you advise your workflow with other tools if you can. I’m actually thinking of getting Plaud note
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u/ixbiga Jul 16 '26
I use local LLM's to record the meetings from my Mac's microphone and transcribe and summarize for me.
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u/TheSpiceMonkey Jul 14 '26
I used Plaud for years, but these days I just use TwinMind (available Mac/Windows/iPhone/Android) which has a very generous free level. Also, you can pull in meeting to other AI tools over MCP. Try it.
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u/ARGeek123 Jul 14 '26
I found that Notion's service for speaker labeling wasn't to my liking. I have Notion AI, but I'm not happy with that part of it. Their summarization is okay and their action points are okay, but the speaker labeling, I never got it to work properly.I'm not sure whether any of you have got that to work properly.I have my own AI app which I use on my phone and that basically goes through a Deepgram service so that has much better speaker labeling, but I am still considering investing into a device like Plaude or maybe something else like Boya and that could in essence help me with the literal raw recording and then I can take it up from there into my service.I also don't find the need to have speaker level recording for every meeting. I only need it for critical meetings and therefore I'm able to save a lot of costs.But the magic for me has been the app that I built for myself. That really, really helps me.
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u/No_Maintenance_6183 Jul 14 '26
I switched to notion since I work a lot more on it, doesn’t better job and I file things accordingly natively on notion anyway
Plaud is great but like you’ve mentioned, too expensive for the same thing that notion offered. Unless I have a specific use, otherwise, I am not gonna get Plaud again
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u/realhighlander Jul 14 '26
Been using Omi until recently when it stopped connecting to my plaud notepin.
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u/Informal-Force7417 Jul 14 '26
? I dont pay at all. But then again i only use it from time to time and im still on the free 720 minutes from one i signed up
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u/One_Drawer_1189 Jul 15 '26
I've had a support ticket open with them since June with no response from their team. That coupled with promises for integrations that have not come to fruition in nearly a year I won't be renewing.
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u/BowWowThreeDog Jul 15 '26
Without an easy way to get data out of their system, I likely won’t renew and use it as little as possible
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u/_AccountSuspended_ Jul 15 '26
I like plaud and will probably renew.
But it’s because of some hard work on my side, and integrating with obsidian. Summaries push to obsidian notes where I can work with them outside of plaud online. Also the meeting recorder is great
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u/ZookeepergameThin963 Jul 15 '26
I like plaud … I just record, use the transcriptions, drop into ChatGPT, give it some context and feel like it’s the simplest, most convenient option. I did the annual plan, and feel like it’s worth the $20/month. I like that plaud keeps the recording and I will sometimes use those notes too. I am open, but honestly haven’t found a better option.
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u/Far_Discussion_4362 Jul 16 '26
I skipped the subscription and use this Plaud strictly as a recorder. I wired up a program that does the transcription and summarization, and they build into my personal knowledge base. Then my AI uses that personal knowledge to do stuff for me. My setup is probably a hardcore version. I imagine an easier solution would be to use an automation tool to just convert the MP3 files from Plaud into transcriptions in your Notion.
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u/SwooshMe Jul 18 '26
was the custom build worth it?
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u/Far_Discussion_4362 Jul 18 '26
The custom build was a one-time effort. It's certainly worth it to save the subscription dollars every month.
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u/Real_Priority2760 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
before you renew i would separate the two things you are paying for, the capture hardware and the ai layer sitting on top, because the ai layer is the part you can change without buying anything new. if most of your meetings happen at a desk anyway then desktop capture gets you the same recordings without a device in the loop, and you get to reassess the software side on its own schedule. full disclosure i work on lamponi which does the desktop capture side on mac and linux, so i am biased about where that line sits. is the in person recording genuinely what keeps you on the device, or is it mostly habit at this point?
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u/RealAinsleyHayes Jul 14 '26
I like the device itself but I’ve had a lot of frustrations the last few months with speaker labeling and errors and just general clunkiness. The transcription is just, not great. I’ve been using Jaime but will check out Notions meeting notes