Amazon’s Bee Frontier went on sale on October 15 for $74.99, and it never keeps a recording of what it hears. The audio is transcribed as it comes in and then deleted. On the free Bee Basic plan the transcript doesn’t stay either, because Bee’s help center lists transcripts as a Bee Pro feature. What a Basic owner keeps is an AI summary of each conversation, for 14 days.
Bee Pro costs $11.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and every new Bee device comes with 30 days of it. After those 30 days you either pay for Pro or carry on with Basic.
Where the audio goes
In what Amazon calls Bee Private Compute, the Frontier’s audio is transcribed in real time and discarded without being saved. The transcript and the insights drawn from it are encrypted with keys that only your device creates and controls. Before sending anything, the device checks that Amazon’s server is running approved software, and the processing happens in an isolated environment that neither Amazon nor Bee can open. The system is built on the AWS Nitro System, and the security firm Trail of Bits has audited it.
There is no file to play back, which leaves the summary as the whole record if a colleague later disputes a figure from a meeting. A Plaud NotePin S keeps its recordings on the device until the app syncs them, and its transcript comes from a file you still have.
What the free plan leaves out
Both plans capture conversations and write summaries, which Basic keeps for those two weeks and Pro keeps with no time limit. Bee’s help center lists transcripts as Pro only, along with daily summaries, suggested to-dos, conversation templates and Bee for Desktop, a new app for Mac and Windows. The connections to Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Photos, Apple HealthKit, Alexa+ and Amazon.com are Pro features too.
Amazon’s announcement promises every buyer “conversation summaries, recaps, and 14-day memory at no additional cost.” Engadget’s launch report describes the Frontier producing transcripts and summaries. A buyer working from either would expect transcripts on the free plan. They do appear in the first month, since Pro is included, and Basic has none once the trial is over.
Bee hasn’t said whether conversations past the Basic window are deleted or only hidden when a Pro trial lapses.
Shopping suggestions and Alexa+
Connected to Amazon.com, Bee picks up items you mention in conversation and shows them as product recommendations on Amazon’s home page and in the Bee apps. Connected to Alexa+, an Echo can read you a meeting summary or your to-dos once voice ID confirms it is you asking. Amazon told Engadget that both connections are opt-in, and both need Pro. New buyers also sign in to Bee with an Amazon account, a sign-in that by the company’s description gives Amazon no access to private Bee data.
The first Bee and the new Eclipse
The Pioneer, the roughly $50 band Bee sold before Amazon bought the company, is off sale, according to Engadget. Anyone who bought one before October 15, 2026 keeps the features they had for free, and new ones such as the desktop app go to Bee Pro.
The Bee Eclipse is a card about the size of a credit card that attaches magnetically to the back of a phone, listed as coming soon from $99.99. It is built to hear both sides of a call, and Bee rates its battery at more than 21 days. Each time a recording starts, the Eclipse prompts you to ask the people on the call for permission.
The Frontier itself is rated IP67 and for up to seven days per charge. One button turns listening on and off, a light shows when it is on, and a setting switches it off after a stretch of silence, such as 5 or 15 minutes. Pressing and holding the button asks Bee’s assistant a question or leaves a voice note.
Paying for Pro
Twelve months at $11.99 come to $143.88, so the $99.99 annual plan saves $43.89, a little over 30 percent. Bee’s help center puts the annual price at $99, a dollar under the Bee Pro page. A Frontier plus a year of Pro comes to $174.98 at the higher figure.
You subscribe from the account settings in the Bee app, billed through the App Store or Google Play, and you cancel in the store, where Pro runs to the end of the period you paid for. Before the 30 free days run out, open those account settings and pick the plan the Frontier stays on.
