u/SensitiveOilil

Client calls happen on the road more than I'd like to admit, and fumbling with a device while driving is its own kind of dangerous. Ranked four options specifically on whether I should look at it before starting this.

Hardware

• Plaud Note Pro (my pick).
  •   Pros: magnetically attaches to the back of the phone and auto-detects when a call starts, no button to find, no screen to check while merging onto a highway. Cons: it picks up call audio through the phone when MagSafe attached, so if most of your work calls route straight to the car via Bluetooth or CarPlay and the phone speaker barely plays, worth testing your actual setup before relying on it.
• iPhone (Phone app call recording)
  •   Pros: built into the Phone app, no extra device; recordings land in Notes with transcript on supported models/regions.
  •   Cons: you still have to tap the record button mid-call, so not a real distraction while driving; feature is blocked in the EU and other regions.
• OM SYSTEM WS-882. Pros: genuinely good audio quality once it's set up to record. Cons: recording a call means plugging an external telephone pickup mic into its jack first, not something you're doing at a red light, let alone at speed.
• Sony ICD-UX570. Pros: reliable, needs no internet. Cons: no phone-call mode of its own, so you're improvising a workaround while driving.

Real issue: the 3 solutions in this category require at least one manual step at the start of the call. The magnetic attachment is the only approach I've tested that genuinely removed that step.

I run a small freelance consultancy on the side and my workdays have a specific pattern: a mix of Zoom calls, direct phone check-ins from clients, and occasional in-person catch-ups. kept losing track of action items from the phone and in-person ones, so I spent a few months actually testing tools. Here's what I found.

1. Scheduled video calls

Fireflies handles this well. Speaker labels, CRM push, topic breakdowns, everything lands in my workflow without extra energy. I've kept it running just for this. But it relies on a meeting bot, so if a client calls my cell directly or we sit down somewhere in person, nothing gets captured.

2. Live collaboration and shared notes

Otter is solid for real-time transcription. The shared transcript link is something clients actually use to track follow-ups between sessions. had some accuracy issues on technical topics and had to clean up a few transcripts. Same thing as Fireflies though: video calls work great, everything outside a meeting room just disappears.

3. Phone calls and in-person meetings

tried Plaud Note Pro for this. It clips to the back of your phone for call recording and sits on a table for in-person. fills the gap the apps couldn't possibly do. Summaries are on par with Fireflies quality. The only thing is the hardware cost, and you have to remember to actually clip it on before calls. forgot twice this week already.

What I'm actually using now: Fireflies for CRM logged video calls, Plaud Note Pro for everything else.

If your work is mostly video calls, Fireflies or Otter cover that without any hardware cost. For anyone else dealing with this kind of mixed setup, direct phone calls, in-person meetings that dont get a Zoom link. What kind of ai voice recorder are you using? Is there a software for capturing phone call meetings I've totally missed?