Wave vs Bluedot
Bluedot is a bot-free notetaker for meetings you take in your browser — a Chrome extension and desktop app that records the call without a third party joining. Wave shares that bot-free approach and extends it well past the browser: phone calls, in-person conversations, and recordings from your wrist. Here's where the two overlap and where they part ways.
Windows
ChromeBluedot earned its following by doing one thing cleanly: record browser meetings without sending a bot into the call. Instead of a visible participant, it captures the meeting from a Chrome extension and desktop app, then returns a transcript and AI notes.
Wave agrees with the premise — recording shouldn’t require a bot announcing itself — and builds on it. The real question isn’t bot or no bot (both are bot-free); it’s where do your conversations actually happen?
How they capture audio
Bluedot records meetings in your browser through a Chrome extension and a desktop app, with no bot in the call. Its center of gravity is the computer where you take video meetings.
Wave is bot-free too, and records across every surface where a conversation can happen:
- Video calls, no bot — Wave Desktop captures mic + system audio on Mac and Windows so nothing joins the call, the same bot-free experience Bluedot offers.
- Phone calls — with Premium, the Phone Bridge records incoming and outgoing calls on your real number, both sides transcribed. Bluedot has no equivalent for a regular 1:1 phone call.
- In person, and on your wrist— iPhone, Android, and native Apple Watch and Wear OS apps; press record and capture the room without a laptop open. There’s no external device to buy, charge, or carry.
- Files — audio and video imports run through the same transcribe-and-summarize pipeline.
After the recording
Both tools produce transcripts and AI notes. Wave’s layer on top is broad: speaker-labeled transcripts feed AI summaries and action items automatically, every recording lands in one searchable archive across your devices, and a chat feature answers questions about any past conversation with answers drawn from the transcript.
Bluedot’s strength is a focused, polished workflow for the browser meetings it covers — if that’s where essentially all of your conversations happen, it does the job without fuss.
Where each tool wins
Pick Bluedot if: nearly all your conversations are video meetings you take at your computer, and a Chrome-first, bot-free workflow is all you need.
Pick Wave if: your conversations also happen on the phone, in the room, or on your wrist — and you want one bot-free tool that captures all of it, then turns it into summaries, action items, and a searchable, askable archive. Start free (30 minutes a month; paid plans from $11.67/month), or browse the full list of Bluedot alternatives.
