Tag Archives: Audio

Mapu Speakers bring technology and craftsmanship together

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There are people that love to pit technology against art or craftsmanship but those of us who know better know that the two can actually complement each other. There are products and designers out there who seek to fuse the two together and even bring innovation and improvements to the two worlds. One such product is a speaker that uses natural materials and is created by traditional craftspeople.

Designer: Mapu

The Mapu Speakers is a line of speakers that are made from natural materials like clay, wood, cork, and wool and handcrafted by traditional craftsmen in Chile and Portugal The goal is to create a new generation of craftspeople, “building a bridge between ancestral knowledge and technology”. Aside from having quality speakers so you can listen to your music, audiobooks, and podcasts, you also get a piece of art that you can display in your space.

The wooden cones and caps that are in the center of the driveractually optimize the high frequencies so you get a “vivid, spatial, and engaging sound”. The wool is used for the internal acoustic insulation while the leather and cork are also ideal for insulation due to their high tensile strength and heat resistance. The spherical shape of the vessel also adds to the sound quality that you get so you know that it’s not just beautiful but you get a pretty good speaker.

The Mapu Speakers are also 80% biodegradable so that’s another bonus for those who are looking for something pretty different for their speakers. The Mapuguaquén is already sold out on their website but the Mapu Preto and the Mapu Soenga, available in mono and stereo versions. The vessel-like shapes of the speaker line make it pretty attractive even if you don’t know yet the handicraft story behind it.

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These Transparent Headphones with ENC and a $144 price tag pair perfectly with the Nothing Phone

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No, they aren’t the Nothing Headphones we’ve been waiting for all this while… but they are pretty spectacular-looking. Meet the Mondo Headphones by Defunc, a pair of over-ear cans with wireless audio and beefy sound that boast a gorgeous transparent body design. Equipped with clear covers on the left and right, the Mondo Headphones are yet another example of the rise in transparency in design. Whether it’s Nothing launching transparent phones and TWS earbuds, or even Beats making a see-through version of their StudioBuds +, it seems like there’s a rise in companies being more transparent with their consumers… literally. The Mondo Headphones come with a design that bares all, allowing you to see the circuitry, drivers, microphones, and batteries underneath the hood. The headphones come with dual-drivers and dual-mics, Bluetooth 5.2, and Environmental Noise Canceling. Plus, a highly affordable price tag of sub-$150 makes them almost a no-brainer to add to your tech gear collection.

Designer: Defunc Store

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The Mondo’s design language feels very reminiscent of Nothing x Apple. The headphones themselves are styled with the air of the AirPods Max, boasting metal stems, and comfortably rounded earpieces that cushion you in your own audiosphere. The headphones fold flat too, making them ideal for traveling with, but don’t expect an Apple-style carrying case with these. (Which may as well be a good thing given how unappealing the AirPods Max case is)

The over-ear headphones come with a dual-driver design, delivering balanced full-range audio. Each earpiece is equipped with a 1.6″ and a 0.4″ driver, delivering a respectable frequency range of 20 Hz – 20 kHz for punchy lows, rich mids, and crisp highs. Dual mic arrays also ensure the headphones have great ENC or environmental noise cancellation, allowing you to listen to music, make calls, or even record voice notes with minimal interference from the world around you.

The headphones boast Bluetooth 5.2, offering quick and reliable pairing, and come with a battery that offers 45 hours of constant playback on a full charge – a feature that’s further enhanced by how comfortable the over-ear plus earcups are to wear for long periods of time. The Mondo has 430 hours of standby time, so your battery doesn’t drain too much when not in use (take that, AirPods Max), and a USB-C port lets you charge your headphones from 0-100 in 2 hours.

The Mondo headphones weigh just 9 ounces, undercutting most brands like Microsoft, Sony, Sonos, and Apple which range anywhere from 11 to 13 ounces. The price is a pretty compelling factor too, with a $144.9 tag for a pair of plush headphones with ENC. On the other hand, you do have controls for volume on the Mondo, and there’s a palpable lack of a dedicated button for your phone’s Voice AI like Siri on the AirPods Max. That shouldn’t be a deterrent though, for the budget range. The Mondo Headphones also ship with a USB-C charging cable and a coiled 1/8-inch audio cord for versatile listening options.

Click Here to Buy Now

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Affordable Music Production: The $99 EASYPLAY 1s MIDI Controller with Built-In Speakers

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Small enough to fit in a pocket, lighter than an iPhone, but equipped with a 25+ sound bank, MIDI capabilities, 25 keys, and its own built-in speaker system, the EASYPLAY 1s might just be the easiest way to play music anywhere you go. Music instruments, whether digital or physical, have had a problem of being too expensive, too bulky, or both. The $99 EASYPLAY 1s makes music production and even jamming as simple as pulling the MIDI synth out of your pocket and starting to play. It comes with multiple instruments built-in, a drum machine for you to drop beats, and knobs that let you change octaves and instruments in mere seconds. When you’re done playing with the built-in instrument packs, the EASYPLAY can hook to your laptop or tablet, working as an external synth to let you access millions of other instruments… or even build your own.

Designer: SummerTones

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $198 (49% off) Hurry! Only 60 hours left!

The beauty of the EASYPLAY 1s is that it rejects the status quo with a design that feels fresh, fun, and inviting. It doesn’t look like an electronic keyboard or piano, and opts for a more retro-funk design that’s reminiscent of something Teenage Engineering would create. The EASYPLAY 1s comes with colored keys, the ability to change keycaps, and a design that encourages endless experimentation. When you start playing with the EASYPLAY 1s, you start afresh – the entire experience feels new, which means you learn new things, stumble across new patterns, and create something that feels absolutely original. With time, muscle memory kicks in, and your fingers figure out how to dance across the EASYPLAY 1s’ 25-key interface.

Think of the Casio synthesizers back in the 80s and 90s, and imagine it condensed down into the size smaller than a Nintendo Switch. The EASYPLAY 1s has a small form factor that can be either used handheld, or even kept on a tabletop surface. Switch it on and it starts working off the bat, allowing you to choose instruments, set your pitch or octave, and begin playing. A set of two 2W speakers on each side is enough to play solo, or if you want something a little more comprehensive, a 3.5mm input lets you hook the EASYPLAY 1s to a set of headphones or even a speaker system. Want to go a step further? A USB-C port lets you hook the device to a computer or tablet running any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), effectively turning your EASYPLAY 1s into an external synth. Use it to jam, produce music, or even play samples and loops during a deejay set. Heck, you could even use the EASYPLAY 1s as a gaming controller for games like Guitar Hero, or a slew of other key-smashing games.

The small, lightweight device packs its own 25+ bank of music instruments. You can choose between traditional instruments like a guitar, piano, accordion, saxophone, or go more electronic with waveforms like sawtooth or square waves. Two knobs on either side let you choose instruments or octaves, while keys at the center become your MIDI pads, allowing you to tap for singular notes, or press multiple buttons together to create chords. There’s also a built-in metronome that makes playing in rhythm easy when you’re learning or composing, and Bluetooth capabilities that let you connect your EASYPLAY 1s to a smartphone and play along with your favorite songs on Spotify or any other streaming service.

What sets the EASYPLAY 1s apart is its incredibly low barrier for entry. At $99, it’s more affordable than most regular instruments, making it a great addition to your music arsenal, or even a perfect first gift for a youngster interested in music production. The entire device weighs around 6 ounces (170 grams) and is made of durable ABS and Silicone, making it impervious to rough usage. The $99 variant will get you one EASYPLAY 1s and a set of stickers to put on the keys, or upgrade to the full package for $129, which also includes a lanyard, a carry case, and four sets of keycaps to replace the current ones, for a more themed music experience.

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $198 (49% off) Hurry! Only 60 hours left!

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Chinese Lantern-inspired Speaker Takes The HomePod Texture To New Cultural Heights

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I’m sure that there’s a non-zero percentage of people who saw the first HomePod and were reminded of the paper lanterns that decorate each house during Chinese festivals. These lanterns use a thin crepe paper, joined at intervals to create a diamond-shaped honeycomb pattern not too different from the one seen on Apple’s HomePod, albeit at a much smaller scale. Designer Shengtao Ma saw this as an opportunity to more deliberately design a speaker that pays a hat-tip to tradition. The Sirocco Speaker is a slim audio unit with a decorative cover that tributes the lanterns seen in Chinese culture. The speaker’s cover folds open and close just like the lantern, attaching around the speaker’s slender stem-shaped design. The result is something that’s sculptural yet functional, with a cover that can be changed on demand, and a tactile knob on the bottom for controlling the speaker’s volume.

Designer: Shengtao Ma

The Sirocco Speaker comes in multiple shapes and sizes, resembling the traditional lantern seen in Chinese and other Asian cultures

Shengtao Ma makes a case that the speaker’s foldable outer structure plays a role in amplifying the sound. The speaker itself is a slim, vertical number, but the different diamond-shaped elements act as acoustic chambers, helping channel and amplify the audio much like cupping your hands around your mouth. Whether this theory works in reality is yet to be determined, but the concept secured an A’ Design Award this year.

“This speaker further conducts and diffuses sound through its unique honeycomb structure design, thereby further enhancing the user’s experience and music quality. This speaker is foldable. The speaker’s shell is stowable and modular, and comes with a variety of shell shapes that can be replaced at any time according to the user’s mood and home environment,” Shengtao says. “The foldable honeycomb structure at the upper end can be assembled and disassembled by rotation, making it easy to replace, store, and clean.”

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Sonos Ace Headphones, Yes, Sonos Now Makes Headphones

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Sonos has just dropped its first-ever headphones, the Sonos Ace. These are over-ear Bluetooth headphones packed with features like Snapdragon Sound, aptX Lossless, Dolby Atmos spatial audio, and active noise cancellation. They also support USB-C lossless audio. One notable omission? They don’t support Sonos’ multi-room system.

Many of us thought Sonos would make these headphones integrate seamlessly with their other products, like the Sonos Roam, where music would auto-switch between devices as you move around. Sadly, that’s not the case. Instead, they function like high-end noise-cancelling headphones via Bluetooth. However, they do have one cool Sonos-specific trick.

The Sonos Ace comes with Wi-Fi built-in, allowing them to connect to a Sonos soundbar for TV audio in head-tracked spatial audio. A quick press of a button lets you enjoy your TV’s sound in a virtual home theater setup, perfect for not disturbing others. This feature currently works with the Sonos Arc, with future support coming for the Beam, Beam Gen 2, and Ray.

You can pre-order the Sonos Ace now for $449 / £449 / AU$699, and they’ll ship on June 5, 2024. Yes, it’s a hefty price, but they’re going toe-to-toe with the likes of Bose QuietComfort Ultra and AirPods Max.

In classic Sonos fashion, these headphones come in black or off-white. They feature 40mm dynamic drivers, similar to the older Sony WH-1000XM4 but not the newer XM5 which use 30mm drivers. The Sonos Ace headphones are sleek and don’t stick out much when worn. At 11oz / 312g, they’re not the lightest but also not too heavy. The earpads are replaceable, which is a nice touch.

The package includes a hard case made from recycled materials and a pouch for cables. For connectivity, you get Bluetooth 5.4 with multi-point pairing, Snapdragon Sound with aptX Lossless, and USB-C for lossless audio. There’s no 3.5mm port, but you do get a USB-C-to-3.5mm cable in the box. The Wi-Fi connection is solely for the soundbar link.

They support Dolby Atmos from any compatible Bluetooth device, including iPhones, with head-tracked spatial audio. Battery life is solid at 30 hours with ANC on, and a quick three-minute charge gives you three hours of playback.

Control is via a ‘Content Key’ on the right earcup for volume and playback, with a separate button for switching between TV audio and Bluetooth. No Sonos app needed for setup, but you will need the companion app for head-tracked spatial audio and EQ adjustments. A ‘TrueCinema’ mode is coming soon, promising to tweak spatial audio to better match your living room setup.

One downside? There’s no Find My support, which would’ve been handy for such a pricey pair of headphones.

The Sonos Ace competes closely with Bose QuietComfort Ultra and AirPods Max. They bring long battery life, broad aptX support, lossless USB-C, and Dolby Atmos spatial audio. From early impressions, sound quality and noise cancellation seem top-notch. However, there are some letdowns, especially for Apple users and deep Sonos ecosystem fans. No wireless lossless audio from iPhone and no multi-room Wi-Fi support are notable gaps.

Sonos is open to customer feedback, and while multi-room support isn’t planned, it might come in the future. Despite some disappointments, the Sonos Ace could attract a lot of interest, especially if you’re okay with the premium price.

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Sony’s new BRAVIA speakers are like wearing a home theater around your neck

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No it isn’t a neck pillow, and it isn’t even one of those wearable air conditioners, the BRAVIA Theater U is – wait for it… a neckphone. Sort of like a headphone but not placed on your head, the Theater U is Sony’s alternative to booming soundbars and complicated home theater setups. If speakers are for human ears to listen to, why not just directly place them near your ears to begin with? The Theater U immerses you in 360° spatial sound without immersing your entire house. Wear it around your neck, pair it with a device using either a cable or Bluetooth, and the Theater U brings great audio to your ears without blocking the entire world out. Moreover, you can pair multiple neck-speakers to the same playback device like your TV, so that more than one person can listen to a movie or TV show at any given point in time.

Designer: Sony

This isn’t the first attempt at a neckband speaker, but Sony is incorporating its latest tech to create a compelling option. The key feature is Sony’s X-Balanced speaker unit, housed in a lightweight and flexible design. This unit promises clear acoustics and powerful sound pressure for a rich and satisfying listening experience.

But the real magic lies in the 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer. This tech, combined with compatible BRAVIA TVs, creates a customized Dolby Atmos experience. Essentially, the speaker tailors the sound to your unique head shape for a truly immersive effect. It’s like having a personal mini home theater draped around your neck. Given its proximity to your ears, you don’t need to crank up the volume to hear sounds the way you would an actual speaker system – this means fairly personal listening that won’t disturb anyone else beyond a certain radius.

The BRAVIA Theater U’s versatility extends well beyond movie nights. With an IPX4 splash-proof rating, you can wear it worry-free during light workouts or even take it poolside (just be mindful of splashes). Built-in voice pickup technology ensures clear communication during calls, making it a handy companion for work-from-home video conferences.

The speaker boasts Bluetooth connectivity for seamless pairing with various devices, not just your BRAVIA TV. Think laptops, tablets, and smartphones – you can use it for gaming, listening to music, or watching videos on the go. And for those who want to share the immersive experience, the Speaker Add function lets you connect another BRAVIA Theater U for a synchronized audio experience with a friend.

Battery life is a respectable 12 hours on a single charge, with a quick-charge function that delivers an hour of playback with just a 10-minute plug-in. This makes it ideal for extended movie marathons or long commutes.

The Sony BRAVIA Theater U Wireless Neckband Speaker is available for pre-order now for $299.99, fairly decent considering it’s replacing soundbars which are priced in the same range, but giving you the benefit of portability. While it might not be for everyone, it offers a unique and innovative way to experience immersive audio without disturbing those around you.

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Sonos Ace challenges Apple’s AirPods Max with superior headphones

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Stepping into the highly competitive personal audio market, Sonos launches the Ace, their first over-ear headphones. In a landscape dominated by heavyweights like Apple’s AirPods Max, the Sonos Ace aims to be the brand’s ace in the hole, promising to deliver an unparalleled listening experience. Crafted with precision and care, these headphones are designed to combine high fidelity sound with exceptional comfort and a sleek, timeless design. The Ace better live up to its name, offering a compelling alternative in a market where excellence is the baseline expectation.

Sonos Ace in Black and Soft White

Designer: Sonos

Reflecting a meticulous design process that spans over three years, the Sonos Ace emerges as a product of intense collaboration across technical and creative disciplines. Aki Laine, director of industrial design at Sonos, described the Ace as a pair of headphones that feel as good as they look. Available in two sophisticated colors, Sonos Black and Soft White, these headphones were carefully selected to ensure inclusivity and appeal. The headphones use flexible plastics for a lightweight feel and sturdy metals for structural integrity. The ear cushions and headband are covered in vegan leather, providing a durable yet soft touch that supports extended wear.

Sonos Ace in Black

Sonos Ace Soft White

Sonos Ace Soft White

Aki Laine emphasized the importance of comfort in the Ace’s design, noting, “The lightweight memory foam and vegan leather ensure comfort for long-term use.” The headband and ear cushions are padded with memory foam, designed to conform to various head shapes and sizes. This attention to detail ensures a secure fit without exerting excessive pressure, even accommodating accessories like glasses and earrings. The design also incorporates visual and tactile cues, such as the textured logo and color-coded ear cups, to help users quickly orient and operate the headphones. Comfort is a key focus for the Sonos Ace, ensuring that users can wear the headphones for long periods without discomfort. Extensive testing was conducted to achieve the right clamping force and weight distribution, making sure the headphones are stable and provide a snug fit without causing hotspots. The ear cups are designed to accommodate various ear sizes and shapes, enhancing overall comfort.

Engineered to deliver a high-quality audio experience, the Sonos Ace excels in acoustic performance across different media types. Each ear cup houses custom-designed 40mm dynamic drivers, providing precise and accurate sound across all frequencies. With eight microphones, four on each side (three external and one internal), the Ace delivers advanced active noise cancellation. The external microphones detect ambient noise, while the internal microphones monitor and adjust the sound in real-time to optimize the listening experience. This setup ensures that whether you’re immersed in music, podcasts, or movies, the audio remains clear and immersive.

Controls on the right ear cup: Slide the Content Key up or down to adjust volume. Press it to pause or resume content and take calls. Another button lets you quickly switch between ANC and Aware mode.

Reverting to an analogue hardware user interface, the Sonos Ace enhances ease of use without relying on visual confirmation, and I’m so delighted that they did. The tactile, mechanical slider—dubbed the Content Key—allows users to adjust volume, skip tracks, and manage calls with ease. It provides a reliable and intuitive alternative to touch controls, which can be prone to errors. This thoughtful design extends to the headphones’ connectivity options. The Ace supports both wireless and wired connections, making it versatile for various use cases. Multipoint connectivity allows the headphones to connect to two devices simultaneously, enabling effortless switching. Additionally, a single button press lets the Ace connect with Sonos home theater systems, offering an immersive Dolby Atmos experience with dynamic head tracking.

Integrating several eco-friendly features into the Ace supports sustainability. The headphones incorporate 70% post-consumer recycled plastic in their construction. The carry case, made from 75% recycled polyester derived from plastic bottles, complements this commitment to sustainability. Additionally, the ear cushions are easily replaceable, extending the product’s lifespan and reducing waste. Aki Laine highlighted Sonos’s dedication to creating long-lasting products, saying, “At Sonos, we are committed to creating products that last. The Ace incorporates 70% recycled plastic and features replaceable ear cushions, aligning with our sustainability goals.”

Boasting impressive battery life and convenient charging options, users can enjoy up to 30 hours of listening with active noise cancellation enabled. A rapid charge feature provides three hours of playback with just a three-minute charge, ensuring you never miss a beat even when time is short. The smart power management includes auto-pause sensors that stop playback when the headphones are removed, conserving battery life.

Sonos Ace is perfect for remote work

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Donut-shaped Bluetooth speaker concept inspires a more playful way to enjoy music

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Wireless speakers have become all too common now thanks to multiple factors, from the rise of voice-activated smart home assistants to the popularity of streaming services to the demise of the headphone jack from smartphones. These audio devices have also outgrown their initial designs which seemed to be limited to blocks or cylinders, adopting more fluid forms that are almost artful than technical. Of course, there is no need to go to opposite extremes to have a good speaker design, as this concept proves with a simple and clean shape that immediately strikes one as something that isn’t your regular wireless speaker while, at the same time, clearly tries to deliver the basics of an omnidirectional audio source.

Designer: Fran Rossi, Javier Bianchi

Many wireless speakers today try to deliver sound in 360 degrees to cover the entire room, which is especially needed if it’s meant to respond to voice commands coming from anywhere in the area. Thanks to the likes of the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, cylindrical shapes seem to have become the most common design for wireless speakers. Of course, there are conical or even spherical speakers, but these aren’t the only round objects that can be used to the same effect.

Orbit adopts a lesser-used shape that, along with a sphere or ball, is immediately associated with fun things. A torus can be a donut, a wheel, a piece of candy, or even a floatation device, and the way it can roll on a floor and wiggle and spin before falling down flat is often a game played by children. That playful charm is further emphasized the by concept’s choice of colors and materials, with a bright orange accent against a cool white body, and reflective plastic instead of fabric. It looks almost like a toy, though its functionality is far from being child’s play.

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Thanks to its ring shape, it can also transmit audio 360 degrees, though it also has more freedom on where the sound is sent. When standing, it can bounce the sound off the ceiling, though it can also be placed down on its back for a more conventional horizontal output. The Orbit is almost a perfect torus, so it requires a stand to, well stand up. Its other functions, however, are all built into the device itself, like the large backlit power button in front and the embossed playback controls on top.

Despite the playful nature of its shape, small variations to the design can result in a totally different character. Covering the entire ring with dark gray fabric and switching the accents to wood or gold gives it a more luxurious appeal that could proudly stand as an art object in your living room. Switching up the colors and materials also generates different imagery, turning what looks like a simple design into a highly flexible and customizable one.

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These Absurd TWS On-Ear Headphones are like if someone combined the AirPods and AirPods Max

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Although most people would call these headphones an abomination, I kind of think the ADV. Spider TWS on-ear headphones are the good kind of weird. They come with drivers as big as the ones you’d see on headphones, but are designed to be individual earpieces like most TWS earbuds. The result is almost Princess Leia-ish, with two cans attached to each ear, giving you a TWS earbud experience but with the power-packed audio punch of much bigger headphones. And the headband on top? Well, that’s extinct now, just like the headphone jack…

Designer: ADV.

TWS earbuds offer a distinct benefit – they’re ridiculously compact, and don’t have wires or cables that get tangled or broken. However, they don’t match the sound output of larger headphones. On the flipside, larger headphones have MUCH better audio output, but they’re significantly bulkier than TWS earbuds. ADV.’s Spider headphones try to create a bizarre but funky compromise. In what I can only describe as subtractive design at its best, these TWS on-ear headphones remove the one thing giving wireless headphones their bulk – the headband. By making large earpieces with ear-stems (like the kind you see on hearing aids or spectacles) , the Spider TWS on-ear headphones let you strap great audio directly to your ears. No headband, no bulk, no problem. Plus, these headphones don’t need a case either the way TWS earbuds do. Just slip them into your pocket or bag and you’re good to go. With TWS earbuds, the case does three distinct jobs – charging the earbuds, protecting the earbuds, and allowing you to quickly differentiate between the left and right earpiece. The lack of a case with the Spider headphones means it becomes slightly more difficult to tell the left and right wearables apart… but a clever design detail fixes that. A red ear stem on the right earpiece lets you quickly identify which headphone is which, letting you quickly and correctly wear your TWS headphones every single time.

Channeling the retro vibes of classic Sony or Koss headphones, the Spiders sport a familiar aesthetic. But under the hood, they’re packed with modern tech. At the heart of the sound experience lies a 30-millimeter dynamic driver, a well-regarded size for delivering clear and balanced audio across genres. The 30mm drivers deliver a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz (encompassing the full range of human hearing), and an impedance of 32 ohms, which means they should work well with most devices without needing a dedicated headphone amplifier. It’s worth noting that the headphones currently only support the SBC Bluetooth codec, a widely compatible option, but not the highest fidelity one. The headphones boast an impressive sensitivity of 105 decibels, ensuring they can get plenty loud without distortion.

Connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 5.2, ensuring seamless pairing with most smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Gamers will appreciate the inclusion of a low-latency mode, which minimizes audio delay for a more responsive experience. Perhaps the most compelling feature for everyday users is the lengthy battery life (which is another benefit of that large size). ADV. claims the Spider TWS can deliver up to 28 hours of listening on a single charge, making them ideal for long commutes, workdays, or travel adventures.

What’s most bizarre about the ADV. Spider headphones, however, is its price tag. You’d expect it to be in AirPod Pro or AirPod Max territory, given its size and novelty, but the TWS on-ear headphones start at just $35, which is quite the steal. The headphones are currently available for preorder on Drop.com’s website, with shipping estimated in July.

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Nothing just beat Apple by bringing ChatGPT to all its TWS earbuds… even the older models

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London-based tech company Nothing is making waves in the tech world by expanding its integration of ChatGPT, a powerful AI language model, to a wider range of its audio devices. This move comes just a month after the feature debuted on the company’s latest earbuds, the Ear and Ear (a), and their smartphone lineup… and coincidentally, just hours before Google’s I/O event, where the company’s expected to announce an entire slew of AI features and upgrades.

The earlier-than-expected rollout signifies Nothing’s commitment to bringing advanced AI features to everyday tech. This integration isn’t limited to Nothing-branded devices; it extends to their sub-brand CMF as well. Users with older Nothing and CMF earbud models, including the Ear (1), Ear (stick), Ear (2), CMF Neckband Pro, and CMF Buds Pro, will be able to leverage the capabilities of ChatGPT starting May 21st with a simple update to the Nothing X app. It also cleverly pre-empts Apple, which is allegedly working with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to future models of the iPhone.

Read the Nothing Ear (a) Review here

There’s a caveat, however. To enjoy the benefits of ChatGPT through your Nothing or CMF earbuds, you’ll need to be using them with a Nothing smartphone running Nothing OS 2.5.5 or later. The good news is that activating ChatGPT is a breeze. Once you’ve updated the Nothing X app, you can enable a new gesture feature that allows you to initiate conversations with the AI assistant by simply pinching the stem of your earbuds.

This development signifies a growing trend in the tech industry: embedding AI assistants directly into consumer devices. By offering voice control through earbuds, Nothing is making it easier for users to perform everyday tasks hands-free, like checking the weather or controlling music playback. Imagine asking your earbuds for directions while jogging or requesting a quick weather update during your commute – all without reaching for your phone.

The move comes at a perfect time, right between OpenAI’s GPT-4o announcement, and Google’s I/O event, which will include multiple AI improvements including integration of Gemini AI into a vast variety of Google products as well as with the Pixel hardware lineup.

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