Apple Watch voice memo, straight to your email.
Some ideas don't survive the time it takes to pull out your iPhone. Capture them on your wrist instead: open the app and send in as few as 2 taps, dictate with watchOS voice input, and launch instantly from the Smart Stack. Every memo lands in your own email inbox — and, if you've set it up, gets auto-appended to your Obsidian vault too.
Simple Memo's Apple Watch app lets you write a memo on the Watch and send it to your own email in 2 taps. Input supports voice dictation, and the app launches from a Smart Stack widget right below the watch face. Dictation also opens by itself the moment the app launches, so you can start talking straight away. This page used to say that was impossible on watchOS — we explain below how we were wrong.
Why capture on your wrist?
An idea's lifespan is measured in seconds. While you're walking, cooking, on a packed train, or mid-run, the few seconds it takes to pull out your iPhone and unlock it are enough for the thought to dissolve. With an Apple Watch, capture is finished before you'd have reached your pocket.
How it works — as few as 2 taps on your wrist
On the Watch, the interaction is just "open" and "send." For a voice memo, the full flow looks like this.
- Open the app (tap one)
Launch Simple Memo from the Smart Stack widget, a watch-face complication, or the app grid. - Speak
Dictation opens by itself when the app launches, so just talk. Finish speaking and your words become text automatically. You can switch to Scribble handwriting or the keyboard instead. - Send (tap two)
Tap send and you're done. The memo arrives as an email to yourself — and if Obsidian integration is enabled on your iPhone, it's also auto-appended to your daily note or Inbox note as- HH:mm memo.
Add the widget to the watchOS Smart Stack and the app is one tap away: turn the Digital Crown (or swipe down) from the watch face and tap. Once "raise wrist → turn → tap" becomes muscle memory, an idea reaches your inbox in well under ten seconds.
A limitation we used to have: dictation now does auto-start on launch
"Open the Watch app and dictation is already listening" — that was the experience we most wanted to build. This page said for a long time that it could not be implemented with watchOS public APIs. That was our own oversight. It works today: opening the app brings up dictation automatically. We are leaving the story here rather than quietly deleting it.
Why we thought it was impossible: on watchOS, dictation is part of the system text-input UI. Moving focus to a SwiftUI text field programmatically does not open it, so we concluded that dictation could only begin when the user tapped the field themselves.
What actually worked: WatchKit's presentTextInputController is a public API that lets an app open the system input screen at any moment. Called without a suggestion list, it goes straight to dictation. Some sources say it is unavailable to SwiftUI-only apps, so it might well have come up empty for us — we shipped it only after confirming it works on a real device.
About privacy: what opens automatically is the standard watchOS input screen. The app never receives raw microphone audio — watchOS does the transcription, and only the text you confirm with Done is handed to the app. Cancel instead, and nothing is kept.
So the fastest flow on the Apple Watch is now: raise your wrist → open the app from the Smart Stack or a complication → speak → Done. The extra tap for the mic is gone. The mic button is still on screen, so if dictation does not open for any reason you can start it by hand exactly as before.
The iPhone app supports starting voice input automatically on launch as well (Settings → Advanced). Use the iPhone when your hands are free, and the Watch for the moments when even your pocket is out of reach.
Apple Watch or iPhone — which to use when?
Two-tap sending plus dictation. Best for those few seconds of inspiration while walking, doing chores, or exercising. Dictation opens by itself on launch (see above).
A ~1-second launch, auto voice input on launch, an offline Outbox queue, and the settings for Obsidian auto-append all live on the iPhone. Longer memos and guaranteed offline capture are the iPhone app's home turf.
Whichever device you send from, memos collect in the same inbox and the same Obsidian notes. Never having to remember where you captured something is the quiet superpower of this setup.
FAQ
Can dictation start automatically when the Watch app launches?
Yes, it can. Opening the app brings up the dictation screen automatically — just speak and press Done. This page used to say it was impossible with watchOS public APIs; that was our own oversight. WatchKit's presentTextInputController does let an app open the system input screen on its own, and we shipped it after confirming it works on a real device. The mic button in the middle of the screen is still there if you prefer to start dictation yourself.
Do memos sent from the Apple Watch reach Obsidian too?
Yes. Memos sent from the Watch go through the same sending pipeline as the iPhone app, so if Obsidian integration is enabled on your iPhone, they are appended to your daily note or Inbox note in the same - HH:mm memo format. See the Obsidian integration page for setup.
Does it work offline or without my iPhone nearby?
You can type or dictate the memo on the Watch itself, but sending the email requires a connection — either your paired iPhone nearby, or the Watch's own Wi-Fi or cellular (on cellular models). If you have no connection, send the memo once you're back online.
Is this the official Obsidian app for Apple Watch?
No. Simple Memo - for Obsidian is an independent app developed by YURIKA, K.K. and is not an official Obsidian app. It provides an integration that auto-appends the memos you send to your Obsidian vault. You can also use it purely as a self-email memo app without Obsidian.
Does it support the watchOS Smart Stack?
Yes. You can add the widget to the Smart Stack and launch the app with one tap by turning the Digital Crown (or swiping down) from the watch face — the shortest path from raising your wrist to sending a memo.
How many taps does it take to send from the Watch?
Two taps at minimum: open the app from the Smart Stack or a complication (tap one), then send (tap two). A voice memo is the same two taps — dictation opens by itself, so you speak and press Done.
Related Pages
References
- Apple Watch User Guide — Official watchOS guide covering the Smart Stack, complications, and dictation
- Apple Developer — watchOS apps — Official documentation of the public APIs available to watchOS apps, including WatchKit's presentTextInputController
- Simple Memo - for Obsidian — App Store — App Store download page