Meta Acquires Limitless to Expand AI Wearables Beyond Glasses and Headsets

Meta acquires AI device startup Limitless

Limitless, the AI startup formerly known as Rewind, has been acquired by Meta, the company announced Friday on its website. The company, which made an AI-powered pendant to record your conversations, says it will no longer sell its hardware devices and will maintain support for its existing customers for a year. Customers will no longer have to pay a subscription and will be moved to the Unlimited Plan for the time being. Other functionality will be wound down, including its non-pendant software "Rewind," which recorded users desktop activity and turned it into a searchable record. The startup, founded by Brett Bejcek and Dan Siroker, the co-founder and former chief executive of Optimizely, pivoted to become an AI device maker last year, offering its Limitless pendant for $99. The wearable could attach to your shirt like a wireless mic or be worn like a necklace. The device is one of several AI hardware devices on the market, including another (not very well-received) AI pendant known as Friend. According to Limitless' announcement, the company shares in Meta's vision to "bring personal superintelligence to everyone," which includes building AI-enabled wearables. (Meta is focused for now on AR/AI glasses, like its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, and its in-lens AI glasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Display.) Limitless said it will help bring that vision to life -- which likely means supporting Meta's existing products, not helping Meta add an AI pendant to its lineup. The company hinted that the increased competition in the market made it difficult for it to compete, especially as the larger players like OpenAI and Meta are developing their own hardware devices, too. "When we started Limitless five years ago, the world was very different," wrote Siroker in the announcement. "AI was a pipe dream to many. Hardware startups were considered unfundable, and a business that did both AI and hardware would have been considered ludicrous. But today is different. The world has changed. We're no longer working on a weird fringe idea. We're building a future that now seems inevitable. We're not alone." Meta was asked for comment on the acquisition, but one wasn't provided by the time of publication. Limitless will offer its customers a way to export their data, the company said, or users can choose to delete their data from within the app.

Meta's latest acquisition suggests hardware plans beyond glasses and headsets

Meta has acquired Limitless, the maker of an AI-powered "Pendant," to work on building consumer hardware for the company, the startup announced via a YouTube video and blog post. So far, Meta has focused on selling VR headsets and AI smart glasses. Now the company seems interested in branching out. "Meta recently announced a new vision to bring personal superintelligence to everyone and a key part of that vision is building incredible AI-enabled wearables. We share this vision and we'll be joining Meta to help bring our shared vision to life," Limitless CEO Dan Siroker said in the post announcing the acquisition. Limitless' first product was Rewind, desktop productivity software that recorded everything you did on your computer and turned it into a searchable database you interacted with via a chatbot. The company later expanded into hardware with Pendant, essentially a clip-on Bluetooth microphone that applies the same concept (privacy concerns be damned) to the things you say or hear throughout the day. The company plans to support its existing Pendant customers "for at least another year," but will no longer sell the wearable going forward. Current customers will be able to access all the features of Pendant without having to pay for a subscription, though Limitless says availability will vary per region. If you have data stored with Limitless and don't want to hold onto your Pendant, you're now also able to export or delete your data if you choose. AI wearables focused on recording audio have emerged as a common form factor primarily because they lean on two things AI models do moderately well: transcribing audio into text and summarizing it. Meta dipping its toes into the space makes sense, if only because not everyone will want to wear glasses to receive the benefits of an AI assistant. Amazon acquired an AI wearable company called Bee in July 2025, presumably with similar intentions. Add in Meta's recent hiring of former Apple design lead Alan Dye, and you can start to imagine where things might be headed. In the future, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and Meta Ray-Ban Display could be two entries in a larger lineup of AI-powered wearables.

Meta acquires Sam Altman-backed AI wearable startup Limitless - SiliconANGLE

Meta acquires Sam Altman-backed AI wearable startup Limitless Meta Platforms Inc. today announced that it has acquired Limitless Inc., a startup with an artificial intelligence wearable for recording conversations. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Limitless has raised $33 million in funding from First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA and OpenAI Group PBC Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman. Meta competes with OpenAI in the large language model market. Denver-based Limitless has developed a compact wearable that resembles a tiny pair of headphones. The device, which measures 1.25 inches wide, can be clipped onto a shirt with a magnetic clasp or worn as a pendant. It records the user's conversations, transcribes them and uses AI to extract key details. Limitless captures audio with an array of tiny microphones that implements a technology called beamforming. Beamforming allows microphones to only record audio that is coming from a specific direction. The technology tunes out background noise and increases the quality of the audio that isn't filtered. The microphones and their supporting components, which include a battery that must only be charged every 100 hours, are housed in a water-proof case. Charging is carried out with USB-C cable. Limitless sold the device for $99 prior to the acquisition. The company offered subscription plans that allowed users to increase the amount of audio the device can process per month. It also had a desktop app, Rewind, that offered AI-powered search features for browsing files on the user's computer. The company will sunset Rewind in the wake of its acquisition by Meta. Limitless will also stop taking orders for its namesake wearable, but plans to continue supporting existing devices until at least next December. It will give those devices' users free access to its most expensive subscription plan, which places no rate limits on AI transcripts. Meta might be planning to relaunch Limitless' device as an accessory for its growing lineup of AI smart glasses. The Facebook parent's newest eyewear product, the Meta Ray-Bans Displays, already ships with a wearable accessory. The Neural Band is a wristband that enables users to control the glasses with hand gestures. Now that it has a presence in the eyewear and smart pendant categories, Meta's next step might be to build or buy a smart ring. Current smart rings primarily focus on fitness tracking use cases. They include sensors that measure the wearer's heart rate and collect exercise data.

Meta Acquires Limitless to Accelerate Work on AI-Enabled Wearables | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The acquisition was announced by Limitless in a Friday (Dec. 5) blog post and confirmed by a Meta spokesperson, CNBC reported Friday. "We're excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables," the spokesperson said, per the report. Limitless makes an AI-powered pendant that records conversations and generates summaries, according to the report. In the company's blog post, Limitless co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker said that when Limitless was launched five years ago, the idea of combining AI and hardware would have been considered "ludicrous." But today it seems "inevitable," he said. "Meta recently announced a new vision to bring personal superintelligence to everyone, and a key part of that vision is building incredible AI-enabled wearables," Siroker said in the post. "We share this vision, and we'll be joining Meta to help bring our shared vision to life." It was reported Thursday (Dec. 4) that Meta executives are considering cutting as much as 30% of the budget of the company's metaverse group amid a shift of resources toward AI. On Wednesday (Dec. 3), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a series of posts on Threads that the company is establishing a new creative studio in its Reality Labs division that will focus on AI glasses and other devices. "We're entering a new era where AI glasses and other devices will change how we connect with technology and each other," Zuckerberg wrote in one of the posts. "The potential is enormous, but what matters most is making these experiences feel natural and truly centered around people."

Meta acquires AI wearable startup Limitless By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Meta has acquired AI wearable startup Limitless, according to an announcement from Limitless Co-Founder and CEO Dan Siroker on Friday. The acquisition aligns with Meta's recently announced vision to bring "personal superintelligence to everyone" through AI-enabled wearables, a vision shared by the five-year-old startup. "When we started Limitless five years ago, the world was very different. AI was a pipe dream to many. Hardware startups were considered unfundable, and a business that did both AI and hardware would have been considered ludicrous," Siroker said in his message to customers. Limitless will continue to support existing Pendant customers for at least another year but will no longer sell the device to new customers. Current users will receive the Unlimited Plan for free, eliminating the need for subscription payments. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Meta acquires AI-wearables startup Limitless

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Meta has acquired AI-wearables startup Limitless, maker of a pendant-style device that records and transcribes real-world conversations, as the social media giant doubles down on efforts to build AI-enabled consumer hardware. "Meta recently announced a new vision to bring personal superintelligence to everyone and a key part of that vision is building incredible AI-enabled wearables. We share this vision and we'll be joining Meta to help bring our shared vision to life," Limitless co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker said in a blog post on Friday. Limitless did not disclose financial details of the deal. Earlier this week, Meta hired longtime Apple design executive Alan Dye, a move widely seen as sharpening its focus on next-generation devices. Meta plans to use Limitless' technical capabilities as part of its development of next-generation AI-enabled wearables. Meta currently has partnerships with EssilorLuxottica brands Ray-Ban and Oakley to make AI-powered smart glasses. "We're excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. Limitless, formerly known as Rewind, makes a wearable "pendant" that clips to clothing or a lanyard. The device records conversations, and can generate transcripts and produce searchable summaries through a companion app. It is part of a growing category of AI assistants designed to augment memory and everyday productivity. Meta and Limitless will continue supporting existing users, but the company will stop selling devices to new customers, Limitless said. Existing users will be asked to accept revised privacy terms to maintain service. Limitless has raised more than $33 million from investors including Sam Altman and A16z. (Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)