July 1, 2026. Todovo is now live on Kickstarter.
Eighteen months ago, I was in a meeting.
A solution appeared — clearly, fully formed, the kind of clarity that doesn't come often. I reached for my phone. By the time I unlocked it, the thought was gone. Not hazy. Gone.
That meeting set a project back three weeks.
I've thought about that moment a lot since then. Not because it was catastrophic — it wasn't. But because I realized it was happening constantly. Not just to me. To everyone I talked to about it.
Today, we ship the answer.
What We Were Trying to Build
The concept was simple: a device small enough to always carry, fast enough to capture a thought before it fades, invisible enough to use in any social context.
Press. Speak. Done. Everything else — transcription, categorization, routing to your task manager — handled automatically.
The constraint we kept returning to: it had to work in under 3 seconds. Not as a marketing number. As a functional requirement.
Human working memory starts degrading after 15 seconds. The average phone-based task capture takes 7–12 seconds. The math is straightforward, and the result — losing tasks you intended to capture — is something that happens to nearly everyone who relies on digital productivity tools.
What Didn't Work
Wi-Fi was a dead end. Our first six prototypes used Wi-Fi. Problem: Wi-Fi association takes 2–4 seconds before you've sent a byte. We couldn't get below 6 seconds end-to-end. We scrapped six months of work and rebuilt on Bluetooth.
Capacitive touch didn't survive pockets. The first button design was capacitive — no moving part, clean aesthetic. In testing, fabric contact in a pocket triggered captures constantly. We went back to a physical button. Less elegant. Reliable.
The app we wanted didn't exist. We designed the hardware first and assumed we'd integrate with existing task managers. Turns out, none of them had the API access we needed to create tasks with the richness we wanted without requiring the user to open the app. We built a bridge layer. It took longer than expected.
The AI we wanted wasn't fast enough. Early versions sent audio to the AI and waited. 2–3 seconds just for transcription. We restructured the pipeline: streaming transcription starts the moment you begin speaking, so by the time you release the button, most of the processing is done.
These failures cost time. They're also why the product works now.
The Number That Surprised Us
During beta testing, we tracked one metric obsessively: capture rate. The percentage of "I should capture this" moments that actually made it into the system.
- Phone-based capture: 68–72%
- Apple Watch: 79–83%
- Todovo: 94–97%
That 25-point gap between phone and Todovo — that's 1,250 tasks per year for a knowledge worker who has 5 capture-worthy moments per day. Assuming even 5% of those are high-value items, that's 62 important things per year that stop falling through the cracks.
We'd expected the improvement. We didn't expect it to be that large.
Who This Is For
Todovo is for people who consistently lose tasks between "thought occurs" and "task is in my system." People who've tried multiple productivity systems and find they always break at the capture step. People who spend time in meetings, in transit, in physical activity — situations where a phone or watch is awkward to use.
It's a specific problem. Todovo is a specific solution to that problem. Not a general productivity platform.
What We're Asking For
We need 300 backers in the first 48 hours.
Not because of an arbitrary goal. Because Kickstarter's algorithm weights early velocity heavily in determining how widely to show a project. Our first 48 hours determine our next 28 days.
Early Bird pricing: $59 (Super Early Bird $49 / Standard $99). 300 units available. First come, first served.
What Backing Means
When you back Todovo, you're funding the first production run. We've completed the design, the prototyping, and the manufacturing prep. Your backing pays for the first batch of components and the production run.
Estimated ship date: Q4 2026. If we don't reach our $30,000 goal, all pledges are returned and nothing ships.
If You Can't Back Right Now
Share this page. The single most useful thing you can do if you're not buying. Send the Kickstarter link to one person you know who would benefit. Just one.
Join the Discord. We've created a community for backers and interested supporters. Direct access to us, first look at updates, voice in what we build next. Link on the Kickstarter page.
Tell us what you think. Even if Todovo isn't for you, feedback is valuable: feedback@todovo.ai
Thank You
To everyone who signed up for the waitlist, tried the beta, gave us feedback, told friends, asked hard questions, and waited patiently:
This exists because of you. Let's see what happens.
Takahiro Torii
GRAFFITI
P.S. If you're reading this on July 1 and the campaign just launched: the first 6 hours matter most. If you're in, now is the time.