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Why Stream ring-maker Sandbar says the future of AI wearables is voice | Equity Podcast

AI notetaking hardware has taken off over the past couple of years, with credit-card-sized devices, pendants, pins, and even transcribing earbuds all promising to capture your meetings and turn them into summaries and action items. Now, a whole wave of wearables — rings especially — are betting people want to capture stray thoughts and ideas…

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AI notetaking hardware has taken off over the past couple of years, with credit-card-sized devices, pendants, pins, and even transcribing earbuds all promising to capture your meetings and turn them into summaries and action items. Now, a whole wave of wearables — rings especially — are betting people want to capture stray thoughts and ideas the same way.

One of the companies chasing that bet is Sandbar, the startup behind the private voice ring Stream, which has raised $36 million to date, including a $23 million Series A led by Adjacent and Kindred Ventures.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan talks with Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi about why he thinks so many voice hardware devices before Stream struggled to break through, and why he’s betting that keeping the human firmly in control is what it’ll take to get wearable tech right.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:24 From MIT neural interfaces to founding Sandbar

5:15 Live demo: capturing a note with Stream

9:19 Whisper mode and cross-device dictation

11:58 What makes hardware finally click for users

16:26 Learning from Humane, Rabbit, and Friend’s stumbles

19:09 The case against “always on”

21:20 Zuckerberg’s superintelligence letter, and where wearables fit

24:13 The funding: $36M raised to date

26:34 Why Sandbar chose the fully custom hardware path

28:36 Outro

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CNET

Were You Impressed by Google’s New Pixel Devices? Tech Editors React to Made by Google 2026

Our top mobile and health tech editors from PCMag, CNET and ZDNET share their thoughts on Google’s Made by Google Pixel event hosted by Trevor Noah. What were the coolest features on the new Pixel devices, and what felt like a dud? Read more about the Made by Google event on CNET.com: Made by Google…

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August 12, 2026

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Our top mobile and health tech editors from PCMag, CNET and ZDNET share their thoughts on Google’s Made by Google Pixel event hosted by Trevor Noah. What were the coolest features on the new Pixel devices, and what felt like a dud?

Read more about the Made by Google event on CNET.com:
Made by Google 2026: Pixel 11 Event Date, Time, How to Watch and What to Expect

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Host: Iyaz Akhtar
Host: Andrew Gebhart
Producer, Live Streaming Engineer: Stephen Beacham
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CNET

Everything Revealed at Made by Google 2026 in Less Than 12 Minutes

Google revealed its new lineup of Pixel 11 Phones, Pixel Buds Pro, the Pixel Watch 5 and the new Pixel Tag at its Made by Google event, hosted by Trevor Noah. Check out all the highlights and product reveals in less than 12 minutes. You can find the products mentioned in this article linked below…

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August 12, 2026

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Google revealed its new lineup of Pixel 11 Phones, Pixel Buds Pro, the Pixel Watch 5 and the new Pixel Tag at its Made by Google event, hosted by Trevor Noah. Check out all the highlights and product reveals in less than 12 minutes.

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Science & Technology

What You Tell AI Could Show Up in Court

Use a lawyer that uses AI, do not use AI as your lawyer. Chat GPT and Claude don’t have attorney-client privilege so whatever you ask can (and likely will) be discovered if you go to litigation. Startup lawyer Kristina Subbotina joined us on our Build Mode podcast to talk about how she built Lexsy, an…

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August 12, 2026

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Use a lawyer that uses AI, do not use AI as your lawyer. Chat GPT and Claude don’t have attorney-client privilege so whatever you ask can (and likely will) be discovered if you go to litigation.

Startup lawyer Kristina Subbotina joined us on our Build Mode podcast to talk about how she built Lexsy, an AI tool that keeps human lawyers in the loop.

Watch the full episode here:

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