Status: Design research complete.

A design exploration for a pocket-sized voice recorder — I²S digital audio capture, local storage, optional LoRa sync for off-grid field recording, and integration with Hermes backend for AI transcription and note extraction.

Design Goals

• Pocket-sized — small enough to carry always, discrete enough to use in meetings
• High-quality audio — I²S MEMS microphone, 16-bit/44.1kHz or higher
• Local-first — onboard storage (SD or SPI flash), no cloud dependency
• Off-grid sync — LoRa-based sync to the Grainworks mesh when WiFi is unavailable
• AI pipeline — upload to Hermes for transcription, summarization, and note extraction

Key Questions

• Battery life tradeoffs (continuous recording vs. voice-activated)
• Storage capacity vs form factor (how many hours before offload?)
• Wireless sync strategy (WiFi when available, LoRa when not)
• Transcription accuracy with I²S MEMS mics in real-world acoustic environments

Source Files

• Design doc: /Volumes/Mini_1Tb/Projects/research/pocket-recorder-design.md