(Credit: Prego)
Are your family dinners a lively affair? Perhaps you want to encourage more discussion? Prego wants to help. Yes, the pasta and pizza sauce company has launched a recording device designed to capture smartphone-free mealtime chats.
The Connection Keeper is a limited-edition device made in partnership with StoryCorps, a nonprofit that aims to record the conversations of everyday Americans. Seemingly inspired by Prego's pasta sauce lids, the puck-like recording device sits in the center of the table to record your conversations. It can also chime in with prompts to "spark real dinnertime conversations."
You need to press a button on the top of the puck to record a conversation. There’s no screen and no connectivity outside a USB-C port for charging or moving conversations to a StoryCorps portal. It records to a 16GB microSD card, allowing for up to eight hours of conversations.
Prego says the StoryCorps portal is encrypted and offers "full privacy controls," but there's currently no comprehensive rundown of how it'll work. Recordings will be accessible and shareable starting on May 4.
StoryCorps will keep them private by default, or you can upload them to the nonprofit's public archive. If you do this, be aware that anyone online can access your family's conversations, and you will want to ensure that everyone you've recorded has given permission before doing so.
The device is relatively affordable at $20, with sales beginning on April 27. According to The Verge, Prego plans to sell fewer than 100 units, so you'll have to act fast to get one.