Status: Design written. Path A (dev board + modules) costs ~$25 and takes one evening to wire.

A functional prototype of a minimalist voice recorder — one slider switch, no screen, no case, no battery. Set it on a table during a meeting, slide to record, slide off when done. Audio syncs over WiFi to Hermes Agent for transcription, classification, and routing.

This is v0.5 — the working hardware proto phase. Everything extraneous has been cut: enclosures, seals, batteries, gesture detection, graceful power-loss protection, BLE, OTA. Just the bare minimum that records audio and syncs it.

Design Decisions

• Slider switch over button — ON records, OFF stops. No press-and-hold, no double-tap, no debounce. Anyone can use it.
• USB-C powered — always plugged in for v0.5. Battery comes in v1.
• Bare PCB — no case, no IP rating, no sealing. Proto only.
• Hardcoded WiFi — credentials set at flash time. Captive portal in v1.
• 16 kHz mono WAV — Whisper-standard, 1.8 MB/min, 290 hours on 32GB SD.

BOM (two paths)

• Path A: ESP32-S3 dev board + INMP441 breakout + SD module + slide switch = ~$25. One evening on a breadboard.
• Path B: Custom PCB at JLCPCB = $2 for 5 boards, ~2 weeks turnaround.

Source Files

• Design doc: pocket-recorder-design.md (local)