Review – Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
Posted on June 2, 2009 at 5:43 am
I’ve been lucky enough to get a review unit of the much-hyped LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen! If you haven’t heard about it before, it’s a nitfy little gadget that lets you write notes in a notebook and later convert them to digital text stored on your computer.
Over the last few years, there have been many attempts to create a product that could easily let you capture your hand-written notes in digital format, but nothing really worked that great.
When I heard of the LiveScribe digital pen, I was initially skeptical. But after hearing about it from so many people, I decided that I had to see for myself. Here’s the really short review:
If you have the need to write a lot on paper, this is by far the best product for capturing any kind of hand-written notes. Not only that, it links audio with your hand-written text, so you can jot-down notes and record what is going on around you.
It’s perfect for students and people who have to attend a large number of meetings.
What’s in the Box
Here’s what you get when you first open your new Pulse Smartpen:
- Pulse Smartpen (the pen has a headphone jack, microphone, OLED display, speaker, infrared camera, and removable ink cartridge)
- USB Mobile Charging Cradle
- LiveScribe Starter Notebook
You also recieve a 3-D recoding headset, Smartpen case, and interactive demo card inside the notebook that helps you get started.
Getting it Working
At first, figuring out how the whole thing works is a bit tricky. Can you start writing immediately or should you install the desktop application first? Basically, each notebook has special paper that the Smartpen can read using the camera, so you can turn the pen on and start writing immediately.
Note that you can only write on proprietary Livescribe notebooks, if you try to write on a plain piece of paper, nothing will be recorded. This is one downside to the product, but it’s also why it works so well.
Everything will be recorded as long as the pen is ON, which means you can see something in the display window, such as the time. Note that you should install the Livescribe desktop software before connecting your USB cradle to the computer.
Apparently, the Smartpen will only link with one computer, which I’m not too kicked about. That’s probably the other major downside I see in the product. If I spend $250 on a product, I should be able to use it on as many computers as I like.
Anyway, once you write in your notebook, simply connect the Smartpen back to the USB cradle and watch the magic! The software will automatically recognize that you connected the pen, will check for any new additions to the notebook, and if so, will upload them into the software for you!
As you can see, I’ve only used one page and the rest are empty. As you write on the pages, more will show up individually. Simply double-click on a page to view the digital version of it.
There are a few things to note in the above image. Firstly, you notice that some text is black and some is green, namely the circle. What does that mean? Anything green means there is recorded audio linked to that text.
Simply click on the green text and you will hear all the audio that was recorded while the text was being written! Cool huh? The other great feature of the Smartpen is that all your hand-written text notes can be searched instantly.
And this was probably the most impressive feature of all because my hand-writing is horrendous, however, the desktop application was able to find just about every word I typed. For example, I searched the word “again” and it found it and highlighted it:
The search feature is excellent and very useful if you take a lot of notes, but can’t remember where you wrote what. If you can remember one word, you’ll be able to find the notes using Livescribe.
To record audio while writing something in the notebook, just click the Record button that is at the bottom of each page in the notebook. They are basically special controls that let you navigate all the pens’ features and applications.
You can also create a bookmark anywhere in the notebook and then use the controls at the bottom to skip to previous or next bookmarks. You can use the Jump To Position control on the page to move around the page quickly if listening to audio.
The pen can hold up to 100 hours of audio and if you ever run out of space, you can delete them from the pen, but still have them stored on your computer. Of course, you won’t be able to listen to the audio by just using the pen if you delete an audio session, but it will remain on the computer.
But that’s not all. You can also upload your notes along with audio and create what is called a “pencast”. A pencast is basically a replay of your written notes along with the audio. Check one out here:
Pretty neat eh? You can create your own pencasts and share them on your blog or website. This is great for teachers or anyone who wants to explain an idea or concept to someone using pen and paper.
Overall, the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen is an excellent tool for anyone who writes a lot. It’s simple to use, works very well, and has a lot of great features. Enjoy!
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8 Responses to “Review – Livescribe Pulse Smartpen”
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How to quickly take notes using OneNote Says:
[...] you like to write stuff down on paper, you might want to check out the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, which lets you write in a physical notebook, but transfers everything to digital format also. If [...]
June 7th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Ohhh Wow….this is such an awesome tool. Makes me want to go back to school all over again and take notes
)
Thanks for writing up this post.
Your blog’s great!
Good job Aseem!
A question – is it necessary to upload your pages to the web, or can you store them on your PC only. Do you lose any functionality if you don’t upload to the web?
Hi!
I’m a budding writer and I’ve been thinking about this pen since I saw it, but I’m not sure.
Is there anyway to convert the hand-written notes into typed texts? I haven’t been able to find out if you can or not.
If there is anyway that you can let me know if this is/isn’t possible? It would be much appreciated.
Blaze
AE: You can keep everything on your PC; you don’t have to upload it at all – that is only an option.
Blaze: You cannot “directly” convert the data in LiveScribe to text, but you can still get there. The first step would be to export the pages you want as a PDF document. The next step would be to use one of the many freeware PDF to text converters (take a look at http://download.cnet.com/windows/ and do a search for “Simpo PDF to Text” – it isn’t bad for a freeware app).
Hope that helps.
Happy LiveScribing!
Scott
thabks for posting this, i’d like to know if after writing in the special notebook of the pen if this one fills up can we erase the notebook to have more space? or do we need to buy another one?
PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM. My spouse bought the pen for my daughter. Daughter then plugs pen into holder, holder via usb into MAC Book, she waits and gets a notification that the pen is registered to someone else. After multiple try s I enter the gam and slowly look for some reset process. There is none. After contacting customer service, we were told basically tough.
The pen was apparently restocked after being returned. Target, company we bought it from, is not supposed to restock returns. Therefore we must way two business days before they can register the pen and then only if it has not be reported stolen. No, we cannot speak with a supervisor and no the manager will not take our call or leave us an email to contact him.
And no, there is nothing to do but, wait or return it to Target for a replacement. HA HA. And by the way there is no policy to reset the pen when this type of problem occurs. Again, go to hell customer, we got your money. This is the worst customer service I have seen from an IT company in years if not ever.
I am thinking about getting this pen but are you saying that two computers can’t be used? Like at my work computer and then at home and then on Girlfriend’s laptop too? What would happen if you set it up on a computer and then later had to buy a new computer?!
I understand you can export the files to a pdf file. But, I guess you would have to have separate audio file?!?!!!