Why Stream ring-maker Sandbar says the future of AI wearables is voice

Sandbar, the startup behind the AI voice note-taking ring Stream, has raised $36 million to date, including a $23 million Series A led by Adjacent and Kindred Ventures. Co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi discussed on TechCrunch's Equity podcast why he believes keeping the human in control is key to wearable tech success.

AI notetaking hardware has taken off https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/20/ai-notetaker-hardware-devices-pins-pendants-record-transcribe/ over the past couple of years, with credit-card-sized devices, pendants, pins, and even transcribing earbuds all promising to capture your meetings and turn them into summaries and action items. Now, a whole wave of wearables — rings especially — are betting people want to capture stray thoughts and ideas the same way. One of the companies chasing that bet is Sandbar https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/05/former-meta-employees-launch-stream-a-smart-ring-that-takes-voice-notes-and-controls-music/ , the startup behind the private voice ring Stream, which has raised $36 million to date, including a $23 million Series A https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/10/sandbar-secures-23m-series-a-for-its-ai-note-taking-ring/ led by Adjacent and Kindred Ventures. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity https://techcrunch.com/podcasts/equity/ podcast, Rebecca Bellan talks with Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi https://www.linkedin.com/in/mina-fahmi/ about why he thinks so many voice hardware devices before Stream struggled to break through, and why he’s betting that keeping the human firmly in control is what it’ll take to get wearable tech right. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@TechCrunch , Apple Podcasts https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1215439780 , Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1215439780/equity , Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5IEYLip3eDppcOmy5DmphC?si=rZDFHv2sQUul g94iCRgpQ and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X https://twitter.com/EquityPod and Threads https://www.threads.net/@equitypod , at @EquityPod.