I Tried Amazon’s Bee Wearable: Fascinated but Slightly Uneasy

I recently had the chance to test out a wearable device from Bee, the AI wrist gadget acquired by Amazon last year, which has since been updated with several new features.

Like other AI wearables, Bee is designed as a personal assistant: it records, transcribes, and summarizes the user’s conversations throughout the day, providing a continuous note-taking capability that’s helpful if you’re forgetful or simply want to be more organized. If synced with your calendar, it can also send alerts and reminders about your tasks for the day.

TechCrunch has covered Bee previously, and the operation is quite straightforward: the user powers it on, wears it, syncs it with the Bee mobile app, and inputs some basic personal information. Bee features a built-in recorder that can be activated or deactivated with a click of the wearable’s button. When Bee is recording, a green light blinks; when it’s off, the green light turns off. After a recorded conversation, the app provides an automated summary that is easy to read, along with a complete transcription of the discussion.

Your experience may vary regarding how intriguing (or not) this concept is. Personally, as a privacy enthusiast, I value any opportunity to avoid being recorded, especially in an era filled with digital surveillance. Consequently, the thought of wearing an eavesdropping device on my wrist 24/7 wasn’t particularly appealing.

Nevertheless, I must concede that — in the right context — Bee has significant potential to help organize one’s life.

Bee shines in professional situations. If your day is packed with meetings and you struggle to keep everything organized, Bee could serve as a moderately capable assistant.

During a work-related phone call this week, I activated Bee after confirming I could record our meeting. The app promptly generated a summary of our conversation, neatly dividing each segment for easy later review without needing to re-listen to the entire call. This was undeniably beneficial, though it should be acknowledged that this functionality isn’t remarkably different from those provided by other transcription services like Otter or Granola, which also deliver transcriptions and automatic summaries.

That said, one can envision scenarios where a professional juggling multiple meetings throughout the day would find value in this device. You could keep Bee running all day and later review the conversation summaries for any unclear points.

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Bee does a decent job summarizing conversations, but the actual transcripts can be somewhat disorganized. Past reviewers have mentioned the need to manually input the names of other speakers, as Bee sometimes fails to identify who is talking. During my call, I noticed it omitted certain segments of our discussion — nothing critical, but it didn’t capture everything that was said.

I also took Bee to my bi-weekly movie night with friends and left it running all evening. Given that we watched Reservoir Dogs, I was slightly concerned the wearable would confuse the on-screen violence with real-life incidents and trigger an alert. However, Bee accurately interpreted the context, identifying that we were watching a movie, and labeled the subsequent conversation summary as “Tarantino Film Scene Analysis.”

While Bee shows promise as a professional tool, I wouldn’t want it recording my personal life. Oddly enough, it has primarily been marketed for personal use. To feel comfortable with that, you must be at ease with Bee having access to a significant portion of your offline and digital existence.

Indeed, for optimal functionality, Bee requires extensive mobile permissions — including access to your location, photos, phone contacts, calendar, and mobile notifications. You can also choose to share health data, should you wish for it to monitor your sleep patterns or resting heart rate.

The vast amount of data Bee collects is stored in the cloud, which raises concerns for privacy-conscious individuals. In a message to tech YouTuber Becca Farsace, Bee supposedly demonstrated a version of the device operating entirely locally. Should the company deliver such a product, I would be highly impressed — and possibly even consider purchasing one. However, Amazon hasn’t provided any updates on those plans.

Regarding digital privacy safeguards, the company asserts it employs encryption to secure user data — both at rest and in transit. Its privacy policy claims to have “implemented technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information” processed. Bee also reports undergoing “rigorous third-party security audits” and maintaining continuous security monitoring. While this sounds promising, it’s important to remember that Amazon, like many other large tech companies, has faced occasional data security issues (not entirely surprising for a company managing so much of the global cloud environment).

In conclusion, Bee is an intriguing piece of hardware that, with some time and adjustments, could feature promising professional applications in the future. As a digital assistant for personal use, however, it might be too intrusive for some users.

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