Wireless earbuds are becoming more popular, cheaper, and a necessity if you own a smartphone that doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack, aka an iPhone 7. The problem with wireless earbuds is limited battery life, require you to take them out to talk to someone, and are easily lost – trust me, my earbuds have fallen out and been lost forever. One Kickstarter, called Hy, is working to fix all the pain points with concealed earbuds you can wear all day. The device has a battery that last 12+ hours, has hidden low profile look, doesn’t block your ears so you can hear everything around you, and is intended to be worn all day.
Hy looks a lot like a hearing aid, but instead of amplifying your surroundings – it’s playing music, letting you talk on the phone, or listen to your surroundings.
The earbuds, if you want to call them that, use a combination of bone conducting technology and the air to give you the best sound quality, but still leave your ears unobstructed. There’s a one of a kind driver to help reduce ambient noise when you’re using them, making the sound quality similar to ordinary headphones.
There is also health and fitness sensors built into the device, which includes a heart rate, body temperature, head motion tracker – all to provide a full range of activity tracking. The inclusion of fitness tracking reminds me of the Bragi Dash but is meant to stay in your ear all day. The hearing aid form factor may not appeal to everyone but is an ingenious way of always wearing the device.
The campaign is looking to raise $86,000, and they’ve already raised $35,000 with 19 days to go. They’ll likely get the funding they need, and if you act quickly, you can grab the Hy for only $171. The devices won’t ship until early 2018, which is a long time from now, and raises concerns if they’re going to be able to ship anything. Everyone is concerned about Kickstarter campaigns these days, especially after Pebble ran out of money and was bought by Fitbit.
Hy is a glimpse into our future where we have implants always to listen to music, hear the news, or listen to other media. Tell us in the comments below – what do you think about Hy being an always worn earbud?