Smartpens?

[Eckhart]

I just heard about those so called Smartpens. If you have not heard about them before either, just type in Google "smartpen" and there you find something usually.

Apparently they exist already longer but I never have seen such a thing yet, and I heard by it only randomly today. The concept sounds awesome to me though. Most interesting to me is the feature that it records what you write on the memory so you can transfer it later to your computer.

I usually take notes at university on my Macbook, but for things like Maths where it is difficult to just type it in, or when I do practice lessons, I write it on paper. Since I have always a big mess with my papers, I would prefer a digital format.

Did anyone of you see or use such a Smartpen? If so, what experiences did you make with it? Is it compatible with not that clean handwriting? That could break my neck sadly... and since they are rather expensive (well, for a pen), I won't make a spontaneous buy without reading about it a bit more.

 

[Patches]

This sounds like something that would have a lot of errors, TBH. I don't know a lot about them... But it just doesn't sound possible with handwriting as messy as mine.


I wouldn't want one anyway. One of the most effective tools for memorization is recopying your notes. So I write my notes by hand, and then manually recopy them into a 'study guide' on my PC that I can print out and go over. I feel like skipping the act of recopying my notes would negatively impact my coursework A LOT.

 

[Eckhart]

Yeah, that is what I fear too that it could have several bugs.

I just watched some review video of this pen and apparently it saves what you write first like an image file, so it does not really have to detect your handwriting because you just see it how you wrote in on the paper (like when you lay your paper on a scanner). The handwriting recognition is optional apparently, but indeed does not go too well with messy handwriting (saw it demonstrated in the review video, there it failed). Interesting is also that it also records audio, and when you tip on a word it plays the audio from the point on when you wrote just that word.

But I guess I will stay away from it, since I found out you need also special paper for it etc. which is obviously rather expensive (and especially in maths I use lots of paper). But still I would be interested in experiences with it, because I like such kind of stuff