Sticky notes are a great way to remind yourself – or others – of something important. But they’re a bit wasteful. The Seeed Studio offers a modern alternative in the shape of a magnet-backed E Ink slab that uses AI to take voice notes.
Sure, if you use a pencil to jot down your thoughts on a paper sticky note, you can erase your scribble and add another. But someone will scrunch it up and throw it in the bin way before its sticky strip loses its grip.
Pretty much everyone has their eyes constantly fixed to a smartphone screen these days, so why not just use yours to send a reminder to your housemates? Of course, there’s no guarantee they’ll read it in time to take the trash out when the latest funny video proves way too distracting.
Seeed Studio
Seeed Studio has kind of merged those two methods in a palm-friendly, magnet-backed slate that sports a 3.97-inch touch-enabled ePaper display and voice-to-text capabilities. You tap to speak, make your voice note, the AI converts it into text and then you attach the device to a magnetic surface where your housemates (or yourself) will see it later.
There are built-in apps for creating designs, showing the time, displaying the weather and more. If you prefer to type out your musings on a digital keyboard, the companion mobile app caters for that sort of thing via the ubiquitous smartphone, as well as voice input.
The user experience can also be customized to suit individual needs, via compatibility with firmware platforms like OpenDisplay and ESPHome – you could even opt to add e-reader functionality, or use it as a smart home hub.
The reTerminal Sticky has its own 750-mAh battery that’s topped up over USB-C. Things like converting voice notes to text, running the onboard Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and so on will draw power, but the 800 x 480 ePaper display itself should be able to hold an onscreen message without needing to draw battery juice. As such, Seeed reckons that up to a week of typical use is possible. That could bump up to months for applications requiring infrequent display updates.
Seeed Studio
Elsewhere, an ESP32 microcontroller handles the display, touch, sensors, wireless comms and local storage – supported by 8 MB of RAM. N52 magnets sit at the four corners of the 106 x 65.5 x 7.3-mm (4.17 x 2.5 x 0.28-in) housing, and the device ships with an adhesive magnetic ring to allow for positioning on non-magnetic surfaces – such as on the wall by the front door or a light switch.
All in, I like the idea of having a digital sticky note that I can leave at eye level near areas in the house with maximum footfall. I also appreciate being able to dive behind the scenes and change things up to make the device my own.
Of course, just how useful the reTerminal Sticky will be to you will depend on your budget, but I don’t think that the asking price of US$49.90 is too bad – though that doesn’t include shipping and duties. The device is on pre-sale now, with shipping estimated to start mid-September.
Product page: reTerminal Sticky
