Amazon's Bee wearable now listens and shops⁠.

Amazon has announced two new Bee devices, the first since it bought the start-up last year². The Bee Frontier, an updated version of the original, costs $74.99 and is on sale now, worn on the wrist like a fitness band or clipped on as a pin¹. The Bee Eclipse, a credit-card-shaped device that snaps magnetically onto the back of a phone, is coming soon at $99.99¹.

Both listen to your conversations through the day and turn them into summaries, transcripts, insights and to-dos¹. Connected to Gmail, Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, a Bee can draft emails, set up meetings and surface action items². If you agree a date and time with friends, for instance, it remembers them and creates a calendar invite².

The new part is a Bee Pro subscription at $11.99 a month¹. The free tier gives conversation summaries, recaps and 14 days of memory¹. Pro adds unlimited summaries, suggested to-dos, a personal chat assistant, third-party app integrations and links to Amazon.com and Alexa+². The Amazon link is opt-in and surfaces shopping suggestions based on what you said, so if your spouse asks you to buy cat litter, a product card may remind you on your Amazon homepage¹. Pro users can make purchases from Amazon or ask Alexa for their Bee summaries hands-free².

On privacy, Amazon says the devices do not store raw audio, which is processed in real time and then deleted². Transcripts are encrypted with keys the device creates and controls, so no one else, including Amazon employees, can read them unless the owner shares them². Bee's AI is trained on the owner's voice, and other speakers are not identified unless they also allow it to train on theirs¹. The Verge points out that the launch comes during a backlash against so-called surveillance tech¹.

The Frontier undercuts rival note takers such as the $159 Plaud Note and the $129 Pocket². It has dual microphones, a recording indicator light, about seven days of battery and IP67 water resistance¹. The larger Eclipse is pitched at more professional use and runs for 21 days on a charge¹.

Who else is in the room

For a UK business the question is not whether the gadget is clever. It is who else is in the room when it is switched on. A Bee captures everyone near the wearer, not only the person who bought it, and the colleague or customer across the table was never asked. Deleted audio and encrypted transcripts answer who else can read the notes. They do not answer whether the conversation should have been captured at all. If staff are likely to bring one into a client meeting or an interview, it is worth deciding now whether that is allowed and how the other people are told.

The shopping link is the awkward part. A device sold as a way to stay present in the moment now turns what you say into product suggestions, and it is easy to see why a retailer would want that. Amazon has given no UK release date and no price in pounds; the prices here are American. The Eclipse is the one Amazon pitches at professional use, so it is the one to think about first.

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