Prego Introduces a Device for Recording Dinner Conversations, Got It?

Prego, the pasta sauce brand, is venturing into hardware with a device designed to sit on your table and capture dinner conversations. No, this isn’t an April Fools’ joke.

The Connection Keeper resembles a round puck equipped with two microphones for recording discussions around the table. This recorder is a collaboration with StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization that has captured life stories from over 720,000 individuals in its 20-year history.

However, the Connection Keeper serves more as a marketing gimmick than an everyday product; only a limited number—fewer than 100—will be produced. The pucks have a striking resemblance to tuna cans, designed to be discreet and unobtrusive. The primary objective, according to Prego and StoryCorps, is to encourage people to put away their phones during mealtime.

“Today, everything revolves around AI, and everyone has their phones on the table,” says Elyce Henkin, a managing director at StoryCorps studios and brand partnerships. “It disrupts conversations and their natural flow. We aimed to eliminate that distraction and return to the essentials of having face-to-face dialogues.”

Each puck comes with conversation-prompting cards inspired by StoryCorps, tailored to spark discussions between family members. Some are directed at children, others at parents or relatives.

The device does not record automatically. Users must press a button to begin capturing CD-quality audio and press it again to stop. It stores all audio on a 16-GB microSD card, which can hold up to eight hours of recordings. These files can then be saved on a StoryCorps microsite or the family’s personal storage. There’s no cloud connectivity, Wi-Fi, or AI features involved.

A more community-focused aspect of the initiative allows users to share their recordings on StoryCorps’ website (or keep them private). Any voluntarily shared content will also be preserved as part of the broader StoryCorps collection within the US Library of Congress.

Prego is a US-based brand, named after the Italian term for “you’re welcome.” From my experience in an Italian-American family, I can say that the Connection Keeper may have quite the challenge capturing conversations at a table filled with lively uncles and a wine-drunk grandma who are all chatting at once.

“This is representative of most families,” Henkin notes. “StoryCorps reminds us of our shared humanity, even with our differences. I can imagine that anyone listening to these recordings would encounter lively moments, kids laughing, and moms saying, ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full.’ That’s all part of the reality.”