Prego pasta sauce wants to listen in on what’s being said around the dinner table
Making memories while you're slurping noodles
🍝 Prego, the pasta and pizza sauce brand, has partnered with non-profit StoryCorps to develop a product that can record your dinnertime conversations
👂 It’s called The Connection Keeper, and works by recording dinner-time conversations to a 16GB SD card in the name of making memories
🤔 There’s no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or AI involved, and conversations can be kept private, or shared with family and even with the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center
💰 The device is extremely limited in supply and goes on sale for $20 next week as part of a bundle with some Prego pasta sauce, spaghetti, and more
In a very strange turn of events, Prego, the pasta and pizza sauce brand, has developed a device that’s designed to record everything said around the dinner table.
As spotted by The Verge, the device, known as the Connection Keeper, was created in collaboration with non-profit StoryCorps, the organization that’s focused on preserving the stories of Americans in a collection housed at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center.
It’s understandable that this device may encourage discussions about security concerns, although this isn’t a ‘connected’ device as other, more ‘smart’-type things usually are. There isn’t any Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or AI, but you can optionally upload recording to the StoryCorps website to make it easier to share with family.
The idea of the Conversation Keeper is that it encourages families to sit, talk, and make memories around the dinner table, rather than use their phones, which are then documented on the device.
It has a 16GB SD card inside for local storage and will run for up to eight hours on a charge, capturing CD-quality audio of a conversation with its dual microphones.
Recordings can then be transferred via USB-C to a PC, where they are then uploaded to the StoryCorps website in a private area where they are preserved and accessible only to the person who uploaded them.
It’s then your choice if you want to expand the availability further and wider, either to select people or the general public. You can even archive your recordings to the Library of Congress, which then makes them public automatically, if you want to.
The problem is that there will only be 100 or so of them around, so you’ll need to be quick when the device goes on pre-order on April 27 for $20 as part of a bundle.
The bundle includes the device, a jar of Prego sauce, spaghetti, and a deck of cards featuring conversation prompts and ideas to keep things fresh and interesting at the table.
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Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.