Moleskine’s next paper planner will automatically sync with Google Calendar and Apple’s iCal

I use a Hobonichi Techo Weeks as a daily planner. Like John found when reviewing planners, it’s the perfect size and has just enough space for my to-do list, appointments and a bit of journaling. But it doesn’t sync to my Google Calendar like Moleskine’s upcoming planner. I mean, my planner is just normal paper. The Moleskine version is a combination of a Livescribe pen and special paper.

This is the latest product in Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set but the first to feature calendar syncing. Previous products would sync hand-written notes using either a smartphone’s camera or a Neo pen.

Like other Livescribe systems, the Smart Planner as it’s called uses paper embedded with sensors that can read and sync anything written by the Moleskine Pen+. Meetings and appointments written on the planner part of the paper are synced automatically to the user’s Google or Apple account and placed appropriately on their calendar.

Both the pen and the paper are required for this system to work.

The system will be available worldwide on September 12 though at a much higher price than my Hobonichi planner. The set will cost $199 or $29 for just the planner.

There are a handful of smart writing systems on the market including Livescribe’s own line of products, but few, if any, offer direct calendar syncing. That’s the key here. For people like me that enjoy the time and effort it takes to write something down, this system will give us nerds the convenience of a digital calendar with the joy of using a pen.