Your device
What the Omi knows about you
Omi, by Based Hardware (founder and CEO Nik Shevchenko, a Thiel Fellow, in San Francisco, with about $700,000 raised), is a shipping AI necklace in the ambient-recording 'second brain' category: a small circular orb worn on a neck lanyard that captures conversations and runs them through GPT-4o for ambient transcription in more than 25 languages, auto-summaries and tasks, a searchable memory database, daily recaps, and a Brain Map. It sells for $89 as a consumer unit or about $70 as a dev unit, with a free tier of unlimited on-device transcription plus 1,200 cloud minutes a month and an Omi Unlimited plan from $16 a month, on a hardware-sale-plus-subscription model where the user owns the device. It is one of the few genuinely open-hardware entries in the cohort, with an MIT-licensed GitHub repository of around 12,700 stars containing firmware, mobile and desktop apps, a backend, and open hardware designs, actively maintained into 2026. A disambiguation worth recording: Omi is distinct from Friend, Avi Schiffmann's AI companion pendant already in the registry, since Shevchenko's device was originally also called Friend and was renamed Omi after Schiffmann's competing device acquired the friend.com domain. The AI is genuine cloud functionality rather than veneer. A significant cap-flag applies to the aspirational marketing: CES 2025 headlines describing a brain interface that reads your mind via neural signal are unverified, with TechCrunch explicitly unable to verify the brain interface, the shipping product being audio-only, and the brain-computer-interface module remaining a 2026-2027 roadmap item with no EEG implementation in the open repository, so all neural and mind-reading claims are treated as aspirational.
Track the Omi and we will tell you the moment its privacy, price, or safety record changes.
Track this device →What it knows about you
5 findings on record · 5 verified against primary sources
What it collects about you
Where your data goes
What you can control
What it collects about you
The data this device picks up.
Recording you
Records and stores your conversations to provide AI feedback and build a personal memory bank. A local-only version is also available where no data is collected by Omi.
Where your data goes
Who else can see it once it leaves the device.
Shared with others
Shares data with third-party providers under strict confidentiality agreements and discloses data only when required by law. Has achieved SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance.
Sent to the cloud
By default, Omi sends encrypted audio to cloud servers for processing via Deepgram for speech-to-text and various LLM providers; an alternative wearable app version is available where all data stays locally on the device and users bring their own API keys.
What you can control
Your say over the data it holds.
Kept on the device
A fully local app version is available where Omi collects no data, you bring your own API keys, and all data stays on your device.
Deleting your data
You can view and edit your personal information, opt out of non-essential uses like marketing, and request data deletion within legal and operational limits.
The full record
- Specs
- Small circular orb (~2.5cm) on a neck lanyard (also head-mountable). $89 consumer / ~$70 dev (one-time). Free tier: unlimited on-device transcription + 1,200 cloud min/mo; Omi Unlimited from $16/mo. GPT-4o cloud AI: ambient transcription (25+ languages), auto-summaries/tasks, searchable memory DB, daily recaps, 'Brain Map'. Genuinely open-source (GitHub BasedHardware/omi, MIT, ~12.7k stars, firmware + Flutter/macOS apps + open hardware incl. 'Omi Glass').
- Form Factor
- wearable (AI necklace orb; ambient recording / 'second brain' transcription + recall)