Livescribe 3 Smartpen: Do More With Your Written Notes

Livescribe 3 Smartpen: Do More With Your Written Notes

Glow Serly    November 25, 2013    Comment   

By combining the ease of hand writing, the power and accessibility of Apple's iOS devices, and audio, the Livescribe 3 Smartpen is a powerful tool.  With the smartpen you can start writing on a pad of paper and see your handwriting appear on your iPad or iPhone almost instantly.

When taking notes It can record audio that is linked to your handwriting, allowing you to easily hear what was happening exactly when you were writing.  It can easily search through notebooks of handwritten pages to find the right note in an instant, and it allows you to share your notes with anyone without copying or scanning.

The Livescribe 3 Smartpen is not just a refinement of last year's Sky Wifi Smartpen. The Livescribe 3 Smartpen adds new functionality by pairing it with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The Livescribe 3 is still capable of syncing handwriting and audio, but instead of recording the audio from a built in microphone, the recording happens on an iPhone or iPad paired to the pen with Bluetooth. With the pen connected to an iOS device using Bluetooth, features like handwriting recognition and cloud based storage options are handled by the iOS devices. Most of the pens functionality is handled with the free Livescribe+ app that seamlessly manages the Smartpen.

Read on to find out more about the Livescribe 3.

Hardware and Requirements

The Livescribe 3 is a sleek and streamlined device that is about the same size as some thicker standard pens. The pen twists open to reveal the ball point tip. No more forgetting to turn on your pen, it turns on automatically when the tip is out. At the bottom is a special camera that allows the pen to track its location on the page. At the top of the pen is a stylist tip. The stylist tip hides a micro-USB charging port. Speaking of charging, Livescribe claims the pen gets 14 hours of battery life. At the top there is also an indicator light that shows the status of the pen. The Livescribe 3 uses advanced Bluetooth to connect to the companion app. The pen only supports Apple devices because they have the widest compatibility with the new Bluetooth standard. Livescribe may support Android devices when advanced Bluetooth is more widely available. The pen is compatible with iPhone 4S and newer, iPad 3rd generation and newer, and iPod Touch 5th generation. The companion app requires iOS 7.

The Livescribe 3 requires a special dot paper that Livescribe sells on their website. Some may think of this a negative, but the Livescribe notebooks come in a variety of sizes and are competitively priced.

Livescribe+ App

The Livescribe+ app is the brains of the Livescribe 3 smartpen. The pen sends your notes to the app over Bluetooth and then processes the handwriting and turns it into digital text. The app makes it easy to review notes in a page view or list view. Because the app turns handwriting into digital text, it is simple and fast to search through your notebook. You can search by keyword and easily find all associated notes. Once your handwriting has been converted to digital text you can use the built in iOS Speak Selection feature to have your note read aloud with text-to-speech.

The handwriting recognition was amazingly accurate even with my sloppy handwriting and if it does make a mistake you can manually correct it. If you write down a phone number or an address you can save the information as a contact with one tap. If you write down a homework assignment you can save it directly into your Reminders list which is a nice touch. Using an iOS device as the brains of the smartpen allowed Livescribe to remove the screen, speaker, microphone, and wifi which considerably slimmed down the pen. Using an external microphone eliminates the writing noise that the Sky Wifi Smartpen picks up.

Taking the microphone out of the smartpen does not come with out compromise. Because the smartpen relies on the iOS devices microphone you can not record audio without an iOS device nearby. You can still capture your written notes and sync them next time you have your iOS device handy. For some who don't always have their device close by, but still want to record audio the Sky Wifi Smartpen is a great option. If you always have your device close by this won't be an issue.

Sharing your notes is one area where the Livescribe+ app really shines. Using the standard iOS 7 share sheet you can share your notes to any app that supports PDFs. This includes Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many others. Currently recipients of your documents that don't own an iOS 7 device can only view your handwriting and cannot play back the audio and linked notes known as a pencast. It is really unfortunate that the ability to view pencasts on desktops and Android devices was not present at launch. 

Benefits

The Livescribe 3 can benefit many people who need to keep useful notes for work or school. It can be especially useful for students with learning disabilities who struggle to take or keep notes. For example if a teacher is talking about graphing points and the student gets distracted, he can easily go back in his notes and listen to the audio at a later time.

Teachers and special educators who have multiple students who get class notes provided as an accommodation can easily use the Livescribe+ app to share the note instantly with everyone in the class. This eliminates the need for hard-to-read carbon paper or delays due to photo copying. For people who struggle with organization, the ability to search for notes maybe enough of a reason to purchase the pen. Using a conventional ball point pen for writing is much easier than using a stylus to write on an iPad. The Livescribe 3 gives you the ability to write with a ball point tip while still getting all of the benefits of having your notes on your iPad.

Possibilities

The Livescribe 3 Smartpen and Livescribe+ app have really solid features that have benefits right out of the box. If you decide to buy the pen you should decide to because of the features currently available, but with very capable hardware and the flexibility of an iOS app Livescribe could and should continue to improve the product. One feature that I would like to see added is the ability to speed up and slow down audio playback. Variable playback speed makes it easy listen to more audio in less time. With the Sky Wifi Smartpen this was an option, but it is not currently available in the Livescribe+ app. Audio transcription is another feature that would be a great addition to the Livescribe+ app. Imagine listening to a lecture and having the entire text transcript of the professor even if you weren't able to write everything down.  With improving speak recognition software this feature is probably technically possible.

Pricing and Availability

The Livescribe 3 starts at $150 for the starter edition. A pro edition with a darker finish, larger leather starter notebook, replacement ink, one year premium Evernote access sells for $200. Both editions are avalible from Livescribe's website.

Videos and Images

Device was provided complimentary to reviewer

Livescribe Sky Wifi Smartpen: Handwriten Notes With Audio in the Cloud

Livescribe Sky Wifi Smartpen: Handwriten Notes With Audio in the Cloud

Glow Serly    November 25, 2012    Comment   

Overview:

The Sky Wifi Smartpen from Livescribe is a WiFi enabled pen that has a built in audio recorder. This allows you to digitize handwritten notes which you can sync to Evernote wirelessly when in a compatible WiFi hotspot. (See below for Evernote description) The smartpen allows you to take handwritten notes which are linked to an audio recording of what was being said at the time you wrote your notes. The pen can record audio using a built in or external microphone. Using specially designed note paper, you simply touch "record" at the bottom of the dot paper page and begin writing notes. The camera at the bottom of the pen tracks where you write and the built in microphone records what is being said. The result is that your writing is linked with whatever was spoken at the time. In other words each pen-stroke is linked with the sound that you heard at that time. So if you are in class and your teacher is discussing President Washington and you write "President Washington" later you can playback everything the teacher said about Washington at that time by touching the pen to the words "President Washington."

Many of the pen's functions are accessed by touching buttons printed on the specially designed dot paper with the tip of the pen. When you are done taking notes you simply press the stop button at the bottom of the dot paper notebook and your handwriting and audio recording is automatically synced to Evernote. Click here to view a sample note. From Evernote you can view the note and listen to the audio or share the note.

Click read more below to read the full review.

Benefits:

The Sky Wifi Smartpen has numerous benefits for students, business people, and teachers. The pen allows you to hand write your notes but still have them available electronically. The linked audio is great for reviewing and remembering class notes or business meetings. Also you do not need to worry about using a stylus and tablet.

Set up:

Setting up the Sky WiFi Samrtpen was a bit complicated. Luckily it is a one time set up. In order to connect to Wifi you must use the printed keyboard on the inside cover of your specially designed dot paper notebook. However, you currently cannot connect to wifi networks with hidden SSIDs or networks that require a sign-in or agreement page to connect. Connecting the pen to your Evernote account is very easy.

Hardware:

The smartpen looks like a normal pen but is a bit thicker in order to accommodate all of the electronics. It is comfortable to hold and easy to write with. The pen only includes one physical button which turns the pen on and off. On the front is a small screen, microphone, and speaker. The microphone works well even from long distances, but sometimes picks up the sound of the pen writing. The speaker is adequate for personal use in a quiet room but you can also plug in headphones to the headphone jack on top. The top also has a micro-USB for charging. On the bottom is the ball point tip which is replaceable and a camera which tracks where you are writing on the dot paper. The bottom half of the pen has a slightly rubberized feel that prevents the pen from slipping from your grip. Having wifi turned on degrades battery life but you can turn wifi off by taping the wifi off button on the front cover of your notebook.

Evernote:

Evernote integration is a huge plus for the Sky Wifi Smartpen. It makes it seamless to view and listen to your notes on virtually any devices. Evernote is a free internet storage service designed especially for note taking. Evernote is an online services designed to help you organize notes and information. Evernotes has apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Windows, and Mac. Evernote also allows you to search for text within your notes and organize notes using tags. Evernote also makes sharing a breeze. Your shared pen casts can be view and played on almost any device with the Livescribe player. From within the Livescribe player you can click on any part of your notes to hear what was being said at that time.

Accessories:

The smartpen needs dot paper to work. You can print the dot paper from certain printers or buy it from Livescribe's website. The dot paper comes in notebooks, sticky notes, or index cards and cost somewhat more than normal paper. One small notebook is included with the smartpen. You can add  a recording headset that adds external microphones for increased audio quality. Standard headset such as the Apple headphones with microphone will also work.

Uses:

The smartpen has exciting educational applications. It can be used to help students who have trouble with note taking or who need a little extra help reviewing for tests and quizzes. Students can outline notes and rely on the audio to supplement anything that wasn't written. It could also be used for people with attention issues because if they forget to write down something they can still go back and listen to what they missed. One very exciting application of the pen is for students who are exempt from taking notes. The student who takes notes for the students with disabilities could use the pen to take notes and then immediately email the notes to any student who needs them. This would eliminate any delays in receiving notes and would also not require a teacher to make copies. It also eliminates concerns about the readability of carbon copy notes.

Still To Come:

Sometime in early 2013 a wireless software update will allow you to share your notes to Dropbox, Email, Facebook, and Google Drive. Stay tuned to the Assistive Technology Blog for news about the Sky Wifi Smartpen.

Pricing and Availability:

The Sky Wifi Smartpen costs $150 for 2gb of storage, $200 for 4gb, and $250 for 8gb. Storage is internal and non-upgradable. The smartpen is available online at Livescribe.com and select Best Buy stores.

Videos:

The device was provided complimentary to reviewer .