H1E USB C Docking Station with AI Voice Recorder, Free Transcription & Summarization, 4K HDMI, 1Gbps Ethernet, 5Gbps Data Transfers, 83W PD, Laptop Docking Station for Windows/Mac/ChromeOS (H1E)

As someone who struggles with note-taking and is actively leaning into AI for both work and personal life, the HiDock has been a total game-changer for my work calls. I use it as my external speaker and pair it with a boom mic, and it consistently captures conversations clearly through its onboard mic. The transcription is solid, speaker labeling is simple, and the built-in templates make it easy to generate accurate summaries and action items. Best of all, I can feed those summaries right into my AI workflows—supercharging how I track tasks, recall details, and prep for follow-ups. While I’d love a few more editing tools for trimming or splitting recordings, what it does do, it does exceptionally well. It’s delivered exactly what I hoped for—and more. Highly recommend.

It works as expected, and the sound quality is great, in my opinion. I've been using it as my main speaker.The microphone seems to sound low on the other end unless I get very close to it.The build quality is great, and the recording capabilities work well.You can still use a different mic—I'm using my camera's built-in mic, which sounds very good. With that setup, everything works as I need.

I cannot sing the praises of this device and service it provides. It is so easy to use, turn it on to record the meeting, once done, turn it off. Go to the notes website, click a button then it uses your selected AI tool to summarize the meeting, including weeding out and documenting the action items from the meeting.For me, I am horrible of being attentive in the meeting and taking notes. I am NOT a multitasker. This device takes away the need. It takes the notes for me, then summarizes them.It is simple to connect, plug into your computer with a USB-C cord. Have your computer sound and mic run through the device. You now have a speakerphone and note taker in one.The device comes with a bluetooth ear piece with mic for mobility for those that like to move around and talk as well.As I am alluding to, the device is cool, but the integrated Hi-Notes capability is the life-saver. With this hardware, simply connect to the Hi-Notes website, register the device, it reads from the device and provides both a transcript and summary. Depending on the subscription you get (free or paid for) you can provide minutes with speaker names.Also, as pointed out in other reviews (here and on-line) the noise cancellation/reduction is bi-directional , you can filter out non-voice sound from incoming sound as well as your outbound sound. This makes the notes have more clarity and less cluttered with ambient thoughts that might come from other conversations not directly in the meeting.If you are not a multitasker like me and you have to run virtual meetings, this is a godsend. I do not know if I am brave enough to break it out in a F2F meeting and have it record, but seems quite possible to do that as well.

I purchased the HiDock H1E hoping it would be a valuable tool for meeting transcription and summarization. Instead, it has been a frustrating, confusing, and frankly alarming experience from every angle. The positive reviews I see on Amazon seem utterly disconnected from the reality of the product and service I received. This product is fundamentally broken, the service feels suspicious, getting support is a nightmare, and it carries a significant risk of complete lockout and data loss.Here's why you should steer clear:** 1. Core Functionality Fails Completely- The device's primary purpose is to transcribe and summarize recordings, and it fails miserably.- Terrible Transcription: Accuracy is extremely poor, especially for languages other than English. My simple Spanish tests missed entire phrases ("Hello", "1, 2, 3") even with clear audio. The transcription service they use is simply horrible, missing most nuances and confusing speakers.- Major Bugs: I had one 1.5-hour recording where the audio clearly started at the beginning, but the transcription didn't even begin until over 16 minutes into the recording! This makes entire sections useless. Some recordings were completely blank or had no summaries processed.- Poor AI Quality: Summaries lack insight and rarely identify key outcomes, risks, or action items. Diarization (identifying speakers) is inaccurate, frequently labeling participants as "Unknown Speaker" (as shown in screenshots). The underlying AI template used is rigid and poorly designed, hindering quality.- Comparison: Using the same audio with Google Gemini (Flash 2.0/2.5 Pro) transcribed perfectly, diarized correctly, named speakers based on context, and provided a comprehensive summary including action items from a single, simple prompt. HiDock's performance isn't just bad; it's drastically inferior to readily available alternatives.- Missing Basic Features: There's no real-time transcription (confirmed by support as still being "worked on"), no simple Q&A feature to ask about recording content ("What was discussed about X?"), and no quick options to copy transcript snippets or send notes to other apps like ChatGPT. Basic meeting types are greyed out and inaccessible (as seen in screenshots of the note view).** 2. Software, Device, and the Critical Lockout Risk- NO Local App or Access: This is a fatal flaw. There is no desktop or mobile app to manage the device or recordings locally. You are entirely dependent on their awful web application, HiNotes. Support confirmed native apps aren't expected until late 2025!- COMPLETE LOCKOUT RISK: The device is completely dependent on the HiDock web service (HiNotes). ALL configuration (including settings like disabling automatic recording, see Configurations tab screenshot), access to recordings, downloading, deleting, and even basic device management require you to be connected to the internet and successfully load the HiNotes webpage.- Cannot Manage Local Recordings: Even when the device is connected and recognized by the web app, you cannot manage the recordings stored physically on the device. As screenshots clearly show in the Recordings tab, the "Transfer" and "Delete" buttons for device recordings are greyed out. All management, transcription, and summarization are locked behind the web app and their cloud processing queue. You are forced to just see the files there with no direct control.- Unreliable Web App Leads to Lockout: The HiNotes web application was not just occasionally clunky; it was completely inaccessible on my primary computer for multiple days, stuck on a loading screen (screenshot provided). Because there is no local access or API, this web app failure meant I was completely LOCKED OUT of accessing, downloading, or managing any of my recordings stored on the device or in the cloud.- Firmware Update Data Loss: Adding insult to injury, I was prompted to update the device firmware. Despite asking if I wanted to back up, the update process deleted all my recordings from the device that hadn't already been copied to their servers, without clear warning that local files would be wiped.- Future Risk (Expensive Paperweight): This poses a massive long-term risk. If HiDock ever goes out of business, discontinues the service, or just stops supporting the web app, your expensive hardware becomes a permanent paperweight, and your historical recordings could be permanently inaccessible or lost. You also lose control over who might have access to your data if you can even delete it yourself locally.- Confusing Hardware & Limited Configuration: Device features like the "BNC" slider and the specific 1.5s press for the HiDock key are cryptic and require reading a manual. The "Configurations" tab in the web app (screenshot provided) visually confirms there are zero meaningful configuration options accessible to the user beyond a few basic toggles.** 3. Subscription & Billing is Highly SuspiciousThis is where it gets really concerning.- Conflicting Quotas & Disappearing Minutes: I was initially told I had a large Pro minute balance (over 1000 mins), then given another code for 300 mins, then another for 1000 mins. Applying one of the supposed "gift" codes for 1000 minutes actually decreased my minute balance (screenshot provided)!- Demands for Payment: Despite having gift quotas and facing constant service issues and bugs preventing actual use of the service, support bizarrely claimed an "outstanding balance needs to be paid." This is unacceptable, feels misleading, and borders on being scam-like.- Unable to Use Features: Even with the "Pro" status (notes tagged "Pro" in screenshots), I was unable to access or utilize advertised features like customizing templates (the 'Set as Default' button simply didn't work, as shown in screenshots I provided).** 4. Support is Useless, Difficult to Reach, and Unresponsive to Real Issues- Hard to Find: Finding initial contact info was very difficult (not on the website, only in email replies or the manual). The website chatbot is unhelpful.- Slow & Generic: Responses were slow, often missed the point, or gave basic, ineffective instructions that didn't address the severe problems (like the multi-day web app outage).- Denial of Service Issues: Support repeatedly insisted their server was "functioning normally" and suggested my network was the problem, directly contradicting my testing (tried different browsers, accounts, devices - it worked on mobile but not PC) and clear screenshots of the failure.- Repeated Requests for Information: They repeatedly asked for my Amazon order number and screenshots I had already provided multiple times.- Unavailable Help: While they eventually offered a Zoom or scheduling link, the scheduling link showed no availability for technical support for over a week, leaving me with a broken product and no timely help.** ConclusionThe HiDock H1E and its associated HiNotes service are a catastrophic failure across every aspect: inaccurate, buggy, and limited core AI functions; a painfully restricted, unreliable, and web-only software interface that leaves you completely locked out of your own data; confusing hardware with zero local configuration; highly questionable subscription minute management and billing practices; and utterly useless, frustrating, and difficult-to-reach support. It does not deliver on its promises and actively creates frustration, lost time, and potentially financial issues and irreversible data inaccessibility.Do not waste your money or time on this product. My extensive experience, detailed through multiple support interactions and supported by screenshots showing the broken interface and lack of control, confirms this product is completely broken and the service unreliable, with a critical dependency that makes the hardware useless without their potentially unstable cloud. The disparity between this reality and the positive Amazon reviews is alarming and misleading. I am pursuing a return immediately.

The good:Build and appearance is good. The bad:The speaker sound quality is very average, the ear phone performance is sub-par.The portal is buggy, drops the equipment every time you log in so you need to reconnect, wasting time, and it can take a few tries.The portal will not connect to calendar and will not sync no matter how many times you try.Almost impossible to connect to meetings.The support is very very poor. Overall very expensive nice looking but very sub-par performance to no performance product.

This is an awesome device, mainly because all the processing happens at a hardware level so you could even record conversations without anyone knowing as long as you are using it for the call.Also after that you get all the conversation in text and can do all the things AI can with the text using ChatGPT or Claude