Bee: Wearable AI device that captures spoken conversations and turns them into transcripts, summaries, and reminders. Handy: Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Bee when capturing in-person meetings and follow-up action items hands-free matters most, and Handy when privacy-sensitive voice-to-text where audio must stay on-device matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Wearable AI device that captures spoken conversations and turns them into transcripts, summaries, and reminders.
Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field.
Bee is a wearable personal AI device, now part of Amazon, that continuously captures the conversations happening around the wearer and processes them into transcripts, segmented summaries, suggested to-dos, and timely reminders. The hardware uses dual microphones with noise filtering and is designed to be worn as a wristband or clipped to clothing, with a button press to start and stop capture and an LED indicator to show when it is recording. Captured audio is processed by AI that segments discussions, identifies commitments, and surfaces personal insights over time, rather than leaving the user with a raw recording to comb through. Recordings sync to a companion mobile app on iOS and Android, with Apple Watch support, where users can review their day's conversations, search past discussions, and manage what is stored. Bee supports dozens of languages and emphasizes that only the user can access their own transcripts and summaries. It is aimed at professionals and individuals who want hands-free, in-person meeting and conversation capture without reaching for a phone or laptop. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Handy is a free, open-source desktop application that turns your voice into text completely offline, with no audio ever leaving your computer. You press a configurable keyboard shortcut, speak, and release (push-to-talk), or use a toggle mode to start and stop; Handy transcribes what you said and automatically pastes the result into whatever text field is active. Because it runs entirely on-device, it is built for privacy-conscious users who want dictation without cloud uploads or subscriptions. Under the hood it is built with Tauri (a Rust backend with a React/TypeScript frontend) and supports multiple local speech-recognition models, including OpenAI's Whisper variants with GPU acceleration and the CPU-friendly Parakeet V3 model with automatic language detection. Silero Voice Activity Detection filters out silence so only speech is processed. Handy runs on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux, and is released under the MIT license. It positions itself as an accessible, extensible alternative to paid dictation tools, and is best suited for hands-free typing rather than recording multi-party meetings.
Best suited for
Bee is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Handy is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Bee | Handy |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Wearable device with dual microphones and noise filtering | Push-to-talk and toggle dictation modes with a configurable global keyboard shortcut |
| Standout feature | Automatic transcription with segmented, per-section summaries | Fully offline, on-device transcription with no cloud uploads |
| Team usage | Suggested to-dos and reminders extracted from conversations | Multiple local speech models including Whisper (GPU-accelerated) and Parakeet V3 (CPU, auto language detection) |
| Integrations | Companion app on iOS, Android, and Apple Watch | Silero Voice Activity Detection to filter silence and process only speech |
| Languages & capture | Multi-language support across dozens of languages | Automatically pastes transcribed text into any active application text field |
| Best-fit workflow | On-button capture control with recording indicator | Cross-platform desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) built with Tauri |
Bee
Choose Bee if you need capturing in-person meetings and follow-up action items hands-free — strengths include hands-free in-person capture without needing a phone or laptop.
Handy
Choose Handy if you need hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors — strengths include completely free, open-source (mit) with no subscription or paywall.
Bee
Handy
It depends on your workflow. Bee is strong for capturing in-person meetings and follow-up action items hands-free, while Handy is strong for hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Bee is a free tier with paid upgrades and Handy is open source. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
More head-to-head comparisons involving Bee and Handy.
Bee: Wearable AI device that captures spoken conversations and turns them into transcripts, summaries, and reminders. Beey: Web app for automatic transcription, subtitle creation, translation, and live transcription. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
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