Garmin challenger brand just pulled off a world first for smartwatches

Wearables with AI transcription have emerged as one of CES 2026’s most intriguing under-the-radar trends, and Mobvoi may have just pushed the category into proper smartwatch territory.

The company, best known for its TicWatch line, has unveiled the TicNote Watch, which it describes as the world’s first AI note-taking smartwatch.

Unlike voice assistants or dictation tools, this watch is built specifically around capturing conversations, transcribing them in real time, translating them on the wrist, and then turning those moments into structured, usable information inside Mobvoi’s new TicNote Cloud platform.

It is, in many ways, the logical next step in a trend I have already been tracking at CES: wearables that don’t just monitor your body, but start remembering, organising and understanding your life.

The watch that listens differently

With a single press of the TicNote Watch, you can record meetings, ideas or passing thoughts directly from the wrist.

The watch then handles live transcription and live translation locally, before syncing the content to TicNote Cloud for AI processing.

From there, recordings become summaries, task lists, reminders or structured project notes, rather than long blocks of raw text.

Mobvoi’s Shadow Agent AI is designed to maintain context across multiple recordings, turning scattered voice moments into something closer to a 'living knowledge base'.

It is a very different philosophy from traditional smartwatch voice assistants, which tend to treat speech as a command rather than as information worth preserving.

Not trying to be another Garmin

Mobvoi is not positioning TicNote Watch as a Garmin watch rival in the fitness sense, nor as a lifestyle Apple Watch alternative. Instead, it is leaning into productivity and context.

The watch links voice events with activity and health data, allowing the AI system to interpret conversations alongside daily behaviour.

In Mobvoi’s words, the goal is to understand not just what you said, but when, where and in what physical state you said it.

That is an interesting pivot for a smartwatch category that has long been dominated by step counts, heart rate charts and training metrics.

AI transcription becomes wearable

The TicNote Watch is part of a wider ecosystem that includes TicNote Pods earbuds and the TicNote recorder, all feeding into the same AI collaboration platform.

This reflects a broader CES shift. AI transcription is no longer confined to phones, laptops or meeting apps, and is moving into wearables that sit closer to our conversations, our bodies and our daily routines.

TicNote Watch still offers the expected smartwatch elements: notifications, reminders and daily wear comfort. But Mobvoi is clearly more interested in redefining what a watch can do than how it looks on a wrist.

CES 2026 has made one thing clear: the next wave of wearables is not just about better sensors or brighter screens; it is about memory, context and intelligence.

Mobvoi's TicNote Watch may be the world’s first AI transcription smartwatch, but it almost certainly won't be the last.

As Garmin, Apple, Samsung and others continue refining health and performance, as well as early detection of currently incurable illnesses, another category is quietly forming alongside them: smartwatches that understand conversations as deeply as they understand heartbeats.

How much demand is there for such a technology is yet to be determined, but given that AI transcription is the latest buzzword in wearables, it's likely many of us will get a chance to try it – and soon.

Head over to Mobvoi for more info.