Neosapien Neo 1 review: A really interesting AI wearable

The Neo 1 looks more like a piece of minimalist jewellery than consumer electronics. It’s a slim rectangular module attached to a metal chain that you wear like a necklace. No screen. No flashy branding. Just a small LED and a clean, matte finish. If you didn’t know what it was, you’d assume it was a fashion accessory or maybe a fitness pendant.

That turns out to be a strength. It’s light, sits flat against your chest, and after a few minutes you forget it’s there. I never really wore it as a 'pendant' too much but rather used it as a curious looking small dictaphone that was kept on almost every desk or table I sat on. Build quality is better than I expected from a first-generation startup product. It survived a couple of accidental drops without complaint. It can be used as a wearable and, in fact, is being pushed as one. From that perspective, it’s far less intrusive than a smartwatch and far less conspicuous than talking into your phone.

No screen, by design

The most striking thing about the Neo 1 is what it doesn’t have: a display. There’s no screen to glance at, no notifications lighting up on your chest. Interaction is voice-first and app-dependent.

You activate it with a tap or a wake phrase, the LED lights up to show it’s listening, and that’s it. Everything else happens on your phone. Transcripts, summaries, reminders, insights – all of it lives inside the Neo app.

At first, this feels counterintuitive. We’re trained to expect feedback from devices. But over time, the absence of a screen becomes part of the appeal. The Neo 1 doesn’t demand attention in the moment. It captures, processes, and nudges you later, when you’re ready.

There’s also no built-in speaker, which I ended up appreciating. It doesn’t talk back to you loudly in public. If you want audio responses, they come through your phone or earbuds. It feels more like a silent assistant than a chatty one.

The ‘second brain’ pitch, tested in real life 

Neosapien calls the Neo 1 a “second brain”, which is the sort of phrase that usually sets off alarm bells. But the core idea is simple: it listens to conversations, transcribes them, identifies key points, and stores everything so you can search it later.

This is where the device genuinely shines.

I used the Neo 1 extensively for interviews. Instead of juggling a recorder, a notebook, and half my attention span, I let the pendant do its thing. Interviews were transcribed accurately, speaker separation was solid, and summaries were surprisingly useful. After one long conversation, the app neatly pulled out quotes, themes, and follow-up questions I hadn’t even realised I’d mentally parked.

In meetings, it worked like a quiet stenographer. I could focus on the discussion knowing I’d have a clean transcript and a bullet-point summary waiting afterwards. In one case, it flagged an action item I’d completely missed during a fast-moving conversation.

Search is where it starts to feel really useful. You can ask things like, “When did we talk about the pricing revision?” or “What did she say about timelines last Thursday?” and it actually finds the right moment. Not always perfectly, but often enough to be genuinely useful.

There’s also an emotional layer. The AI attempts to tag tone and sentiment, noting when conversations were upbeat, tense, or uncertain. This feels less essential right now and more like groundwork for future features, but it’s occasionally insightful. Once or twice, it highlighted hesitation in a discussion I’d glossed over at the time.

Living with an always-listening device

Using the Neo 1 day-to-day requires a small behavioural shift. You have to remember to activate it. You have to trust it to capture what matters. And you have to be comfortable wearing a microphone around other people.

The LED indicator and subtle sound cue help here. It’s always obvious when the device is listening, both to you and to others around you. I made it a habit to mention it during interviews and meetings, and nobody objected. Most people were curious. A few were sceptical. That’s to be expected.

In quieter moments, I used it like a context-aware assistant. Asking about my schedule, checking if I owed anyone a follow-up, or recalling what was discussed earlier in the week. When it worked, it felt genuinely helpful. When it didn’t, it failed gracefully, defaulting to logging the request or asking for clarification.

It’s not a replacement for your brain. It’s more like an external hard drive for conversations.

Battery life is one of the Neo 1’s quiet wins. With moderate use, I got two full days comfortably, sometimes pushing into a third. Heavy recording days drained it faster, but never unpredictably.

Charging is via USB-C and takes around 90 minutes. No proprietary nonsense. No nightly charging anxiety. For a device that’s meant to fade into the background, that matters.

Phone-dependent, by necessity 

The Neo 1 relies entirely on your phone for connectivity. There’s no SIM, no independent internet access. Bluetooth links it to your phone, which handles data and cloud processing.

In practice, this is fine. Bluetooth was stable, and the device cached audio locally when briefly out of range. But if your phone battery dies or you’re offline for long stretches, the AI features pause.

It’s not a standalone computer. It’s an extension of your phone. Anyone expecting a self-sufficient AI necklace will be disappointed.

 The Neo app is clean, functional, and mercifully restrained. It organises transcripts into short-term and long-term memory, integrates with your calendar, and lets you search across everything you’ve recorded.

It can feel overwhelming after a busy day. There’s a lot of data. But that’s a good problem to have. I’d like to see better daily or weekly digests, but for a first iteration, it’s solid.

Privacy: the unavoidable question

An always-listening device lives or dies on trust. NeoSapien handles this reasonably well. Data is encrypted, ownership is clearly defined, and you can delete anything at any time. There’s a physical and software mute, and even a “ghost mode” that keeps data local.

Is it risk-free? No cloud service ever is. But it’s no worse than trusting that any other platform we already rely on daily.

Should you buy it? 

The Neosapien Neo 1 isn’t for everyone. If your work is solitary, or if the idea of recording conversations makes you uneasy, it will feel unnecessary.

But for journalists, consultants, students, and anyone drowning in conversations and follow-ups, it offers something genuinely new. Not a gimmick. Not a toy. A quiet, slightly unusual, occasionally brilliant assistant that remembers so you don’t have to.

This isn’t the future fully formed. But it’s closer than I expected.