The earables are on their way!

Smartwatches and fitness bands are ‘the’ fashion item on many wrists today. These small gadgets, also known as wearables, are helping us in everyday life – whether we use them as movement trackers, digital fitness trainers or even as mini-smartphones disguised as watches. Since technology doesn’t stand still, now earables are becoming the latest trend. An earable is a wearable that is worn directly in your ear and can be the control center of your digital world.

Earables resemble earbuds that are usually connected to each other wirelessly. They can be controlled by touch, speech, movement or gestures - all you need is a smartphone. Among the earables available on the market, there are big differences in terms of functionalities. With most of them you can listen to music just like with conventional headphones. Thanks to their internal memory, songs can be saved directly onto the earables and played or can be streamed wirelessly from smartphones and other devices.

Some earables enable you to block out or make external noise louder. Cancelling noise can help to better concentrate. But it can also be dangerous not to hear what is going on around you, when you are on the road. Other earables are interesting because of their activity and health tracking systems. Integrated sensors measure biometric data and provide this information in real-time, keeping wearers, for example, informed about their heart rate, number of steps or relevant time intervals.

Questions answered directly into the ear

But that’s not all: the more advanced models will become personal assistants in the ear. With a built-in microphone, you can use the voice control to make calls, dictate messages or search for information. What’s the weather going to be like? What’s my next appointment? Where is Hokkaido? Life’s biggest and smallest questions can be answered instantly and directly in your ear. Even incoming messages can easily be read out.

Will the future be screen-less?

If you think about all the opportunities that earables offer, the doors to an exciting future are opening. An almost invisible mini-computer in the ear controlled by speech and gestures with which you can call friends, answer messages and surf the internet, sounds enticing. It’s particularly practical in the sense that it sends information directly to the ear, whether you are cooking and your hands are otherwise preoccupied or are riding your bike and need directions. And the icing on the cake for your holidays: simultaneous translations will be possible – and are already in the pipeline. The future is bringing some exciting developments.