World's First AI-Powered Pen Scribbles Its Way Onto Kickstarter
An Alternative to the Digital Notepad?
Nuwa, a future-focused design and engineering team, announced the Kickstarter for its AI-powered pen, Nuwa Pen yesterday. An AI-powered pen may sound a little outlandish, but the concept actually builds on older smart pen technology that uses specialized dotted notebooks to record and digitize the user’s writing. Nuwa’s iteration is quite a bit more advanced, allowing you to jot thoughts down on any scrap of paper and add it to your online library of ideas.
Per the press release, “The ink comes out and the AI-powered cameras trace the lines you make while writing.” Everything that the cameras record is then turned into a page in your digital journal, which is stored on your designated cloud account. Surprisingly, storage is unlimited with any Nuwa Pen App account.
Nuwa CEO and Founder, Marc Tuinier, states, “The dream we share for digital notes is that Nuwa Pen integrates with the ecosystem of apps you use on a daily basis and we’ll continually be co-developing with our customers to increase the number of integrations.”
Out of the gate, the pen will sync with Google Calendar, Todoist, and more than 100 other apps. However, that will require a Nuwa Pen+ Subscription, which is priced at approximately $3.22 per month (2.99 €, according to the Kickstarter). Along with integration with commonly used apps, the subscription includes handwriting-to-typed text conversion, meaning the free version simply converts your handwriting into digital journals. For those with poor penmanship (a la me), this could defeat the purpose of Nuwa. Thankfully, the subscription cost is relatively low.
I’m currently knee-deep into testing reMarkable’s paper tablet, and I’m interested to see the parallels between the two. Is a wholly digital experience easier to manage? Or should we still embrace paper and allow AI to do the work for us?
There are already quirks I’m concerned about, most noticeably the bulk added by the AI cameras and the thought of having to charge yet another device (thankfully, Nuwa opted for a USB-C port). There’s also mention of tweezers for replacing pen refills, which makes the process sound more complicated than it should be.
As of this posting, the Nuwa Pen drew in 518 backers and over $115,000 than its $10,840 goal. The Kickstarter is scheduled to end in early June 2023, but it’s clear the interest is there and it’s likely they’ll hit their $150,000 milestone, which unlocks lifetime subscriptions for backers.
Nuwa Pen is currently available for pre-order for $179 and will retail for $329. It’s currently slated for a March 2024 release.