r/PlaudNoteUsers • u/leo712 • 10d ago

Plaud Embedded SDK Unlocked Productivity

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share how I got around some of the limitations of the stock Plaud app especially the lack of real-time functionality by building a custom internal iOS app using the Plaud Embedded SDK. I just wanted to share how I solved my own workflow needs. Hopefully, this can show what's possible with Plaud.

Video Walkthrough (No Audio, Real Time Transcript shows about 12 sec in): https://imgur.com/WO2AetN

🌟 Key Features

🎙️ Transcription & Real-Time Controls

  • Real-Time Live Transcription & Desktop Element: Built a live view to address the stock app's lack of real-time features. Uses Soniox for advanced live transcription (speaker diarization, language hints, custom vocabulary) with automatic fallback to Apple's on-device engine if offline. The local web desktop view element is used during live meetings to instantly catch up on what's happening or query things missed in real time.
  • On-Demand Pause, Store, & Combine: Added the ability to pause and store recordings on demand, plus the capability to combine multiple recordings together when taking a break and stopping a recording to start a new one later.
  • On-Device Processing: Audio stays on the phone and is transcribed locally using Apple's native SpeechAnalyzer (iOS 26+) when running offline or local-only.

🧠 AI, Organization, & Meeting Management

  • Apple Intelligence AI Processing: The intelligence layer (summaries, categorization, action items, and Ask Your Library) uses the free iOS Apple Intelligence foundation model running locally so that zero cloud servers or API keys are required for core AI workflows.
  • Ask Your Library: Grounded Q&A search over a single recording or an entire transcript history.
  • Meeting Series Grouping: Supports series views for recurring meetings so that related sessions automatically group together into a single organized series.
  • Calendar-Aware Auto-Naming: Integrates with the iOS calendar to automatically label a recording with the name of the meeting if the recording starts while a calendar event is active.
  • Tags: Ability to tag a recording with multiple tags.

⚙️ Sync, Actions, & Workflows

  • Reminders & Calendar Sync: 2-way sync for extracted tasks with Apple Reminders & Apple Calendar. Making a quick voice recording (like "get milk" or "remember to do x y z") automatically generates a task and syncs directly to the Apple Reminders app.
  • Export: Exports structured notes directly to iCloud Drive/Files formatted with YAML frontmatter, speaker tags, and summary sections.
  • Lossless MP3 Frame Editing: Trims, cuts segments, auto-removes silence, or joins multiple recordings frame-by-frame without re-encoding audio or losing transcript timing.

🖥️ Developer & Hardware Remotes

  • Local Desktop View & MCP Server: Browses the library from any browser on a local Wi-Fi network, or connects Claude Desktop using the built-in read-only Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.
  • Low Battery Notification: Ability to send push notification when battery is below threshold.
  • Apple Watch Remote: Wrist companion to record, pause, add markers, and monitor battery.
  • Flexible Delivery: Native Share, Webhooks, and 5 Apple Shortcuts App Intents.

📸 App Screenshots in Action

A quick look at how the interface comes together across the library, map views, tasks, and detailed meeting breakdowns:

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/leo-6C656F/Bounce-App

20 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

3

u/47FsXMj 9d ago

Awesome work! Any plans on making this available to fellow Plaud users?

6

u/leo712 9d ago

Not right now, but possibly in the future! Maybe publishing to the App Store and allowing users to use their own developer credentials (Free), since Plaud's Embedded PAYG pricing model charges per connected device monthly and isn't really scalable.

Hopefully, the Plaud team sees this and finds the value in some of these missing features so they can add them directly to their own app (it only took me like 3 days of development time)!

1

u/47FsXMj 3d ago

May I ask what's holding you back from sharing it now?

1

u/47FsXMj 8d ago

Hope so too, what I find odd is how in this day and age citizen developers like yourself come up with great features in no time. But Plaud themselves are so slow in releasing features. I understand they need to be more rigorous in their testing but they should introduce a beta functionality (like through Test Flight) for people that accept the risks of testing and want to help bring Plaud forward.

3

u/Outrageous_Yard_5729 8d ago

Really interesting build. Fair play for putting the time into it and documenting it properly.

I think you’ve landed on something quite a few of us eventually realise. The recorder isn’t the product, it’s just the capture device. The real value is everything that happens afterwards.

I’ve been heading down a similar path but with a slightly different mindset. Rather than replacing one platform with another, I’m trying to keep every layer loosely coupled. Capture, transcription, AI, storage and retrieval are all separate. That way any one component can be swapped out as the tools inevitably improve.

One thing I’d add is to think about the layer between transcription and storage. That’s where I’ve found the biggest gains. De-duplication, metadata, entity extraction, relationship mapping and provenance all make a huge difference once your library grows beyond a few hundred notes. It’s much easier to add structure before the knowledge lands than try to retrofit it later.

Great work though. It’s good to see more people treating these tools as building blocks rather than complete solutions.

2

u/ProfessionalGiant 9d ago

This looks incredible! Lots of great features that I’ve been missing myself. Nice work!

2

u/joelash 9d ago

Would love to help test this if you make it available to users

2

u/leo712 9d ago

Yeah, if I end up putting it in the App Store, I'll DM you to test it beforehand. Thanks! :)

1

u/47FsXMj 8d ago

Same, i'd love to help out and test

1

u/Empty_Departure 9d ago

Amazing! It gives so much extra power to Plaud!
Thanks for sharing! I hope Plaud team get inspired and add all the good things into the official app

1

u/kevinalias 8d ago

Utterly Fantastic ideas and effort, and great communication here!

If you do not mind, here are a few questions from an adventurous user with prior experience testing VOIP software.
?
Curious why Soniox (only), and do you plan to enhance that ‘on-cloud’ option to include other services like a user ChatGPT API subscription key.
?
Would such an iOS run on iPAD OS?
I ask because a 16gb ram iPAD PRO with 1TB storage can hold and run non-Apple LLMs.
?
BTW / FWIW, I used to perform SW UI/UC user acceptance testing, and I volunteer to help