As we move into the new year, we wanted to take a moment to talk about something that affects nearly every modern audio recording project AI driven demand for memory, and what it means for microSD card cost and availability. We’ll also share how Owl Sense is responding with smarter audio storage through WavPack compression, helping you do more with less.
AI Is Changing the Memory Market
The rapid growth of AI especially large language models and image generation, has dramatically increased global demand for NAND flash memory. The same NAND chips used in data centers and GPUs are also used in consumer products like microSD cards.
As a result, we’re seeing:
- Rising prices for microSD cards
- Reduced availability of certain capacities and brands
- More frequent supply chain disruptions, especially for higher quality cards
This pressure isn’t unique to Owl Sense or bioacoustics it’s happening across industries. But for field audio recording, where large volumes of data are written continuously, storage reliability and capacity matter more than ever.
Why Storage Matters for Field Audio
Uncompressed audio especially long duration, high sample rate recordings adds up quickly. A single autonomous recorder can generate tens or hundreds of gigabytes over a deployment. Traditionally, that has pushed users toward larger and more expensive SD cards, which are now harder to source consistently.
Rather than forcing users to chase ever larger cards, we’ve focused on making storage more efficient.
How WavPack Compression Helps
Owl Sense uses WavPack, a well established audio compression format designed specifically for high quality audio.
What makes WavPack ideal for bioacoustics?
-
Lossless compression
Your audio data is preserved bit for bit. No information is lost, and recordings can be fully reconstructed to standard WAV files. -
Excellent real world compression ratios
In field recordings, we commonly see
50–80% size reduction, depending on environment and noise levels.
That means a recording that would normally take 100 GB might only require 20–50GB instead. With compression we can use 64GB cards and not fill the card before the battery dies. In most cases 32GB is enough as well but is more likely to fill the card.
Additionally compression and smaller cards increase Owl Sense runtime by reducing data write demands. Lower capacity cards typically use less power as well.
Already Supported in Owl Sense
WavPack support isn’t a future roadmap item for Owl Sense, it’s already here.
The current Owl Sense firmware records audio directly in WavPack format.
- No extra steps in the field: compression happens automatically on device
- No loss of audio quality: recordings remain fully lossless
- Standard workflows preserved: files can be converted back to WAV for tools like BirdNET, OpenSoundscape, or custom analysis pipelines
In practice, this allows Owl Sense users to deploy recorders with smaller, more readily available microSD cards today, without changing how they work with audio data later.
Smaller Cards, Same Science
By reducing storage requirements:
- Smaller capacity microSD cards become viable again
- These cards are often cheaper, easier to find
- Long deployments are possible without chasing the highest capacity media on the market
In short, compression gives you flexibility both technically and financially.
Planning Projects for the Year Ahead
If you’re planning new audio recording projects this year whether for wildlife research, environmental monitoring, or experimental deployments we strongly recommend:
- Securing needed microSD cards early
- Avoiding last minute purchases when prices or availability may be worse
- Considering how compression can reduce total storage needs from the start
While we can’t control global memory markets, we can design tools that help you work around them.
Looking Ahead
At Owl Sense, our goal remains the same:
enable high quality, long duration field audio recording with minimal friction whether that friction comes from power, storage, or supply chain constraints.
Thank you for being part of the Owl Sense community. We’re excited to see (and hear) what you record this year.
Owl Sense
Happy recordings 🦉🎙️