Livescribe is coming out with a new smartpen! Called the Livescribe 3, it pairs via Bluetooth with your iOS7 mobile device. Looks like they’ve got an app that does handwriting recognition and then lets you use that text with your calendar and other apps.
One feature is that audio is no longer recorded by the pen. That heavy lifting is done by your iPhone, iPad or iPod and playback is thru those devices. The Livescribe 3 has no display and has no speaker. The pen status is provided by a colored LED.
Its nice that Livescribe admitted to “scratchy” sounds recorded by the earlier pens’ microphones. That is almost admitting that their pen refills didn’t write well! 🙂 but it is even funnier that they tout the recording of audio by iOS devices as a way to remedy these annoying “scratchy” sounds! LOL… much more straightforward to sell smooth-writing refills IMHO!
A nice change is that the pen’s ink cartridge retracts. The Livescribe 3 is a “twist” style pen and no longer has a ON/OFF button. I have to admit that sometimes, I forget to turn my Sky pen on and was forced to “re-write” some of my notes. When you twist the Livescribe 3 to extend the ink cartridge, the pen automatically turns on and pairs with your iOS device.
The company has different ink cartridges for the Livescribe 3. I will order some Livescribe 3 refills to see how well they write, as soon as their website comes up again (it just now seems to have a “can not connect to upstream server” error). The company has gone with the standard D1 refill length (67 mm) but gone with a non-standard diameter (2.5 mm instead of 2.3 mm). This might mean more ink per refill because of the larger diameter, possibly up to 18% more ink (if my memory of geometry serves me well). We know that the 67 mm length D1 refills didn’t seem to contain more ink than the 57 mm long refills made for Livescribe since they appeared to be filled to the same final length.
I did notice that on their video, that the ink cartridge did leave a “bleb” of ink once or twice as it touched the paper. We won’t really know how they write until we’ve used them for a while. Livescribe has gone with a tungsten-carbide tip which is not unusual for ball point pen refills.
I will emphasize this on my listings: current Generic Refills for Livescribe pens ONLY fit the Pulse, Echo and Sky wifi pens. They are too short for the new Livescribe 3. I’m checking with my manufacturer to see if its feasible for Generic Refills to stock this new refill format.
Here are some links to explore. I’ve only been to the Livescribe.com site so far.
Related articles
- Livescribe’s latest smartpen draws heavily on iOS (imenroll.wordpress.com)
- Livescribe 3 Smart Pen Launches As Svelte, Sexy, iOS 7-Only Device (gizmodo.com.au)
- Livescribe 3 smartpen launches in the UK (trustedreviews.com)
- Livescribe 3 smartpen announced (technutty.co.uk)
- Livescribe’s new smartpen takes your handwritten notes directly to your iPhone and iPad (thenextweb.com)
- Livescribe 3 announced with Bluetooth connectivity, dedicated app (electronista.com)
Generic Refills 