[Athen] A Small Rant About Livescribe

[Will Pines via athen-list]

Sebastian,

I have the same questions. From what I’ve gathered, the Livepen is also
going obsolete or going out of production soon so Inq can introduce *their*
own version of the pen. In just the past six months, two pens have gone out
of production, the notebooks no longer function properly, and the apps are
terrible.

Inq is still *Livescribe* — not a new company that acquired them. It
appears to be more of a rebrand to erase the failure of the last two smart
pens.

I’ve started looking into other bulk options that don’t require an app and
still keep the note-taking system within the pen itself. Unfortunately, the
industry seems to have shifted toward personal products that rely on a
tablet or smart device, yet don’t even perform the basic function of
recording audio directly on the pen.

I asked Inq if they would send us a pilot Livepen for a trial so we could
evaluate its viability and provide feedback. They declined and said we
could purchase a pack of ten instead. Interestingly, someone in an
assistive technology group I’m part of (based in Canada) mentioned that Inq
sent them a single pen for review—but they ultimately decided it wasn’t
worth pursuing.


Best,

*WILL PINES*, *Disability Specialist*

Accessible Technology Specialist

Student Disability Resource Center

*he/him/his*



University of California, Riverside

900 University Avenue

1228 Student Services Building

Riverside, CA 92521

Phone: 951-827-3861 | Email: wilbert.pines at ucr.edu



Schedule an Appointment <https://bit.ly/30ghhv1>



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“A mind stretched by new experiences will never go back to its original
dimensions.”




On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 4:40 PM Sebastian M Niles via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> Hello all

>

> I'm emailing with a big complaint about Livescribe and wanted to see if

> anyone had a similar experience. In the past, our university has ordered

> Livescribe Echo pens for students that love taking their own notes and want

> to record as well. The Echo 2s were awesome even if they also tried to get

> you to connect to a bad app (foreshadowing!!).

>

> Fast forward to now. It appears that Livescribe has discontinued the Echo

> 2 and is now selling the Livepen (and also trying to get people to use Inq

> for some reason). The problem with the Livepen is that it doesn't have a

> built-in recorder, and it forces you to use the Livepen app if you want to

> use any of its potential features. As I said before, the app isn't great. I

> don't feel great about making students rely on it when they wanted an

> offline notetaking option in the first place. All of this is a roundabout

> way of saying that I have no idea what Livescribe is trying to do here. Why

> would they abandon the feature that everyone turned to them for in the

> first place? Why are they still selling notebook paper with options to

> "record", "pause", and "stop" if the Livepens can't record outside of the

> app? Who is the target audience here?

>

> Does anyone have good alternatives to Livescribe? I'm not talking about

> Otter or Genio. I'm looking for something that does what the Echo 2 did. I

> know I could just give students a digital recorder and call it a day, but

> I'm hoping that there is some hidden tool that is still committed to doing

> what Livescribe did.

>

> Thank you

>

> Sebastian Niles, CPACC

>

> Accessible Technology Specialist

>

> Student Disability Center

>

> University of California-Davis

>

> Davis, CA 95616

>

>

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>

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