They discontinued the AlphaSmarts, but they're so beloved that there's a strong market for picking up used ones. They developed a number of models (I think initially targeting usage in schools), and the newest is the Neo2.
Writers love the distraction-free environment, and I also find it great for first drafts.
Even though it’s old technology, I kinda expect it to have a longer shelf life than most things because it doesn’t require software on the machine it’s connecting to—it just quickly “types” what you’ve written directly into whatever window you have open: composing an email in gmail, writing a doc in Microsoft Word, etc.
(there are also new electronic typewriters that are trying to achieve the same thing — I’m sure you’ll find them if you google — but I’m turned off by how expensive and weirdly hipsterish they seem to be 🤷‍♀️)
Update: the ReMarkable maybe belongs in this section. It’s basically a digital notebook that will transform your handwriting to text when you’re ready to send it elsewhere. A friend of mine has one and let me borrow it for a series of coworking sessions in a state park. It was a pretty good format for using at a picnic table in the woods.
I’ve also heard good things about Amazon Scribe, but I’ve never tried it.