works virtually every single time.

Sometimes the simplest physical action is actually the most reliable interface.

I think the interesting insight is that you've gradually moved

from trying to build a fully autonomous system

to building a highly reliable pipeline.

Those aren't the same thing.

For your use case, recording things that can't be recreated

meetings, GP appointments, conversations

reliability is far more valuable than removing one manual step.

If you lose 20 seconds plugging in a recorder

but gain 99.9% confidence that the recording will be captured and processed

that's a trade I'd make every time.

I actually think you've converged on a philosophy

that many professional media workflows use.

Dedicated capture devices, followed by a reliable ingest stage

followed by heavy automation.

That's often a much stronger architecture than trying to make the capture itself completely autonomous.