Pocket vs Fieldy, the wearable AI note takers compared

A founder emailed last week asking which wearable we'd buy if we could only carry one. Pocket or Fieldy. Both are small, both are $129 at the moment, both promise the same outcome, nothing you said out loud gets lost. Reading the two product pages side by side doesn't settle it because they describe the same feature list in different fonts. Using both does settle it, and the answer depends on a question neither site asks you. Do you want the recording, or do you only want the notes?

That's the whole comparison in one line. Pocket is built around keeping the audio. It stores it on the device, uploads it to the cloud, and lets you re-run a summary through a different AI model whenever you like. Fieldy is built around never keeping the audio. It transcribes through your phone as you talk, throws the sound away, and keeps an encrypted transcript. Everything else about the two products, the price, the battery, the subscription, the form factor, sits downstream of that one design decision.

This post walks through both as we use them at Market Correct, where each one earns its spot, where each one gets in the way, and the honest version of which buyer should pick which. If you want the standalone takes, the Pocket AI review covers that device alone, and our Pocket vs Plaud comparison covers the other device most people are weighing against these two.

What is the difference between Pocket and Fieldy?

Every spec on the table above traces back to whether the device keeps audio. Pocket keeps it, so it needs 64GB of storage, bigger mics (two studio mics plus a contact mic that picks up phone calls through the phone body), and a battery that handles continuous recording, which is why it's rated for 4 days instead of 7. It also means Pocket can work with no phone in range, because the recording lives on the device until it syncs.

Fieldy throws the audio away, so it can be lighter, last longer, and make a privacy claim Pocket structurally can't. It streams to your phone over Bluetooth, your phone does the transcription through Fieldy's cloud, and what gets saved is the encrypted text. Fieldy's own FAQ says it plainly, it doesn't store audio recordings. That's also why it needs your phone nearby with a connection. Walk away from your phone and Fieldy has nowhere to send the conversation.

Neither approach is wrong. Keeping the audio is better for accuracy disputes, for re-running a summary with a newer model, and for the moments you want to hear the client's tone rather than read a transcript of it. Not keeping the audio is better for anyone who has ever had to answer the question "wait, are you recording this?" in a room full of people. A transcript-only device is an easier thing to explain and an easier thing to defend under a privacy policy. Fieldy markets to healthcare for exactly that reason.

What Pocket does in a working day

Pocket snaps to the back of a phone with MagSafe or clips to a shirt, and the job is to catch the conversations that happen away from the laptop. Phone calls, shoot-day reviews, walk-and-talks with freelancers, the coffee that turns into a scope change. The two studio mics and the contact mic cover a claimed range of up to 15 meters, and the contact mic is the piece that lets it capture a phone call without putting the call on speaker.

The software layer is where Pocket pulls ahead for anyone who already runs an AI stack. Pocket is model-agnostic. The summary of a strategy call can be written by GPT-5, Claude, or Gemini, and you can regenerate it with a different model if the first pass misses the structure you wanted. We run ours on Claude. The MCP server means Claude Code and Cursor can read the transcript archive directly, which turns a pile of captures into something you can query from the same window you do everything else in. Task integrations cover Apple Reminders, Google Tasks, Todoist, TickTick, Linear, ClickUp, and Asana.

The free tier is a full product on its own. Unlimited transcription for life, summaries kept for 30 days, two Ask Pocket messages a day, mind maps, and plain-text exports. Pro at $19.99 a month or $199 a year keeps every summary forever, unlocks the highest accuracy transcription, auto-detects speaker names, removes the Ask Pocket cap, and adds the most capable models and custom templates. The full cost breakdown with the 12-month totals is in the Pocket pricing guide.

What Fieldy does in a working day

Fieldy 3 is a pendant by default and a watch with the $19 band accessory. It transcribes in real time as you talk, so the text is already in the app when the conversation ends, and the summary, the tasks, and the reminders follow right behind it. Fieldy's pitch is that you forget it's on, and between the splash-proof build and a battery rated for up to 7 days of typical use, that holds up better than any recorder we've carried. Charge it Sunday night and stop thinking about it.

The Fieldy app is organized around three things, Memories, Chat, and Tasks. Memories are the transcribed conversations, tagged by location and time. Chat is an AI assistant that answers questions against your own transcripts. Tasks are the action items Fieldy pulls out on its own, with reminders attached. It's a tighter, more opinionated loop than Pocket's, and for someone who doesn't want to think about models or integrations, that's a feature. There's a desktop app for macOS (Apple Silicon) and Windows that transcribes online meetings and syncs with the wearable, so the laptop half of your day is covered without a second tool.

The free plan gives you 150 transcription minutes a month, and Fieldy only counts minutes when it detects voice, which stretches that further than it sounds. Plus is $9.99 a month for 1,440 minutes, calendar sync, and PDF or docx exports. Unlimited is $15.99 a month with priority support, and yearly billing takes 20% off either. For a heavy talker who wants unlimited transcription, Fieldy's top plan is $4 a month cheaper than Pocket Pro. For a light user, Pocket's free tier wins because it never caps minutes.

Pocket vs Fieldy pricing, the 12-month total

Hardware is a tie at $129 while both discounts hold. Pocket's markdown from $199 has been running for a while. Fieldy's $50 off is tied to an anniversary sale, so if the page reads $179 when you get there, that's the list price coming back.

The software is where the totals diverge, and it depends on how much you talk.

• Light user, under 150 voice minutes a month. Pocket is $129 total on the free tier. Fieldy is $129 total on the free tier. Tie.
• Moderate user, a few hours a week. Pocket is still $129 if you're fine with summaries expiring after 30 days. Fieldy needs Plus, so $129 plus $9.99 a month, or roughly $225 a year with the yearly discount.
• Heavy user who wants everything. Pocket Pro brings it to $328 a year. Fieldy Unlimited on yearly billing brings it to about $282 a year. Fieldy is cheaper at the top.

The thing the totals don't show is what you get for the paid tier. Pocket Pro buys model choice, permanent summaries, and the advanced integrations. Fieldy Unlimited buys minutes and support. If you'd pay for Pocket Pro, it's because you want the AI layer. If you'd pay for Fieldy Unlimited, it's because you talk a lot. Different reasons to spend money, and it's worth knowing which one you are before you pick a device.

Where each one falls short, honestly

Pocket limitations

Four days of battery sounds like plenty until a dead Pocket on a Thursday afternoon is a conversation you don't get back. The device is heavier and more visible than Fieldy's pendant, so people notice it on a shirt. The free tier's 30-day summary expiry is the soft push toward Pro, and if you let it lapse you lose the summaries, not the transcripts. And because it keeps audio, you carry the responsibility that comes with holding recordings of other people, and in two-party consent states that's a policy you need before the first capture, not after.

Fieldy limitations

No audio means no second chance. If the real-time transcript mangles a name or a number, there's nothing to replay, and Fieldy's own 95%+ accuracy claim leaves room for that to happen in a loud room. Fieldy also needs your phone within Bluetooth range with a connection, so it's a companion to your phone rather than an independent recorder. There's no model choice and no listed MCP server, so the AI chat stays inside Fieldy's app instead of feeding the rest of your tools. And 150 free minutes a month is a trial-sized free tier next to Pocket's unlimited one.

The shared limitation

Both are hardware, and hardware only works when it's on you and charged. Both degrade in noisy restaurants, because every speech-to-text product does. And both raise the same etiquette question with the people you're talking to. Tell them. The device that keeps the audio makes that conversation a little harder, the one that doesn't makes it a little easier, but neither one makes it optional.

The bottom line