Moleskine’s Smart Pen Will Digitize Your Drawings in Real Time

Nothing says “I’m an early adopter but I still want to look cool and analog” like a Moleskine smart notebook. The hip office supply company has been quick to jump on the smart writing bandwagon, collaborating with companies like Evernote and Adobe to make smart notebooks that allow you to digitize, search, and share your notes and drawings. Now, Moleskine is launching its own smart notebook app, and it can transfer your work in real time.  

The Moleskine Smart Writing Set comes with a Moleskine-branded Neo smart pen, which works with Neo’s Ncoded paper technology to turn hardcopy notes into digital files, and the new Moleskine Paper Tablet, the company’s fancy new notebook.

The smart pen captures ink strokes with an infrared camera and sends them to the associated Moleskine app as you draw. It can also record audio, so you can play back what your boss really said as part of your meeting notes. From the app, you can highlight text, search your handwritten notes, share your drawings over email or Google Drive, and more. The pen can store up to 1000 pages of content offline, so you don’t necessarily have to be next to your tablet or phone to take digital notes.

The whole set will run you $199, plus replacement notebooks ($30 from Moleskine, or you can use Neo’s smart pen notebooks, $14 and up, or print out your own Ncoded paper). Such is the price of living in the future. On the bright side, the pen uses standard ink refills.