Startup Nirva raised $25 million for a $249 pendant that listens all day but is built to capture only the wearer's voice. Here is what to know about the privacy.
Nirva, a startup founded in 2025, has raised $25 million to build a $249 pendant that listens to you all day. It is designed to pick up only the wearer's own speech, not the people around you. Orders open in November, and early users should get devices by the end of the year.
The pendant can also be worn as a bracelet. It weighs about eight grams and runs up to three days on one charge. It comes in silver, brushed silver, black and gold. The company says it wants a gadget that looks like jewelry but still gives real value. The founders are two former Meta Reality Labs employees, Wei Lyu and Jason Chen, plus Hanying Hu, who started a fashion and jewelry brand.
Always-on listening worries people, both wearers and those near them. Nirva's answer starts at setup. Users record short samples of their voice, and the device uses them to tell the wearer apart from everyone else. It filters out other people's speech, so it only records the wearer.
By default, Nirva does not keep audio or transcripts after it processes a conversation. That is a notable choice for a device that is always on.
The companion app turns your speech into insights about your habits and personality. It can show patterns, people who are often around you, places you have been and daily notes. It also surfaces reminders. CEO Wei Lyu described one that nudged her to thank her mother after she forgot.
One detail is worth noting. Before audio is thrown away, the company says it tracks tone, pitch, volume and speed. It uses those signals to infer emotions, which then show up in the app. So the words may not be kept, but a read on your mood is still produced.
The material does not answer these questions, so they are worth checking before ordering.
Nirva has company. Taya, also building smart jewelry, is run by former Apple employees. Friend and Bee are pitching companion gadgets. Vocci and the Sandbar Ring are in the same area. Lyu says Nirva differs because it always passively listens to the wearer's own speech and keeps building a picture of the user over time. The company also plans more devices later. Its funding total is now $33 million, including $8 million raised earlier this year from investors such as Lightspeed and South Park Commons.
Before buying any always-on wearable, read what it stores, what it infers about you, and what it does with your voice data.
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