Kickstarter has brought us some cool stuff, from the Shenmue 3 game to the Veronica Mars movie; however, there’s a flashy new gadget on its roster: the Here Earbuds, which is now shipping after a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Your confusion is audible. Earbuds? Why would 2,800 people give up their hard earned cash to fund the creation of a technology that’s about as futuristic as your Sony Walkman?
That would be because the Here Earbuds are absolutely not just earphones. They function more like a hearing aid, except way, way cooler. In essence, the Doppler-created technology allows you to control and improve what you hear via the accompanying app.
Its simplest function is a simple decibel control, which allows you to turn up or down the volume of the noise around you. Do you have a boring aunt who won’t stop droning on at Christmas lunch? No worries. Send it down. Reckon you can hear your boss talking about you in his office? Send it up!
It’s a cool trick but only a glimpse of what the technology is capable of. The next option is a 5-band equalizer that gives you significant control over the frequencies of the sounds you’re hearing. Maybe rather than turn poor old Aunt Gladys down, you can just turn up the bass!
Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, the earbuds allow you to choose from different preset ‘filters’ to optimize the sounds around you. Sick of hearing meaningless chatter on your bus ride home (aren’t we all)? Just hit the ‘bus’ profile and it magically disappears. As if the idea of droning out other people’s mind-numbing bus small talk wasn’t good enough, this technology can also be used at music festivals to allow you to tune in to the band, and out from the crowd.
The Here technology is getting great reviews so far. The lightweight design is comfortable and comes with a stylish case. Improvements on the initial design mean there is no echo from your own voice. In fact, in everyday conversations, it’s easy to forget you’re wearing it at all; but it’s incredible when you just want to tune out from some of the city sounds for awhile.
The best thing is, the team at Doppler is constantly improving their ‘sound algorithms’ which means this product should only get cooler as you keep updating your app. Carnegie Hall and Coachella have already jumped on board with this technology, so, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before we will all be equipped with superhuman hearing.
Sounds (pun intended) like something you need? Go ahead rediscovers sound and personalize live audio with Here. Join their waitlist on their official website hereplus.me.
Tags earbuds Here Earbuds
