If you've ever spent hours manually transcribing long conversations, you know very well the utter monotony of the task. And, while there are amazing apps out there that help with this these days, Mobvoi has just released a new dictaphone - the AI Recorder - that's specifically built for just that.

Mobvoi releases its AI Recorder that automatically transcribes audio into text photo 2

It's shaped like traditional hand-held audio recorders but has the added function of being able to transcribe your conversation or podcast straight into text, potentially saving you hours of extra work. It needs to be accurate, of course, otherwise there's no point. Modvoi is claiming a 94% accuracy rate, which is pretty good!

It uses dual mics to record audio, as well as filter out ambient sounds with its noise cancellation tech. Once recorded, it can transfer via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth 5.0 to your preferred device. Transfer times can be as quick as one minute over Wi-Fi for an hour's worth of recording, or 30min with Bluetooth. It even has AGC (Automatic Gains Control) that analyses where the speaker is in relation to the mics.

The Modvoi AI Recorder has up to 10 hours of recording time and 16GB of internal storage.

Modvoi focused quite a bit on transporting the AI Recorder. Not only is it really small, it's got a clip, magnetic surface, and hole to hang it from.

Now, you can't necessarily expect it to transcribe every language in the world, so it's starting off with two of the most common, English and Chinese (Mandarin). More languages will be released in time.

The prices are $99.99 / €99.99 / £79.99 for the AI Recorder and a one-year subscription to the transcription services. After that, it's $69.99 a year for further transcription services.