Tag Archives: portable audio

Leaked AirPods 3 images show earbuds with curved stems, like in the Apple AirPods Pro

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When you’re a trillion-dollar company with wildly successful products, it’s kinda difficult to keep things under wraps. With the global supply chain for Apple being spread across multiple countries and multiple continents, a leak from some rogue employee is bound to happen, and happened, it has! Images of the new AirPods 3 have been circulating on the Chinese social network Weibo, with the folks at GizmoChina even jumping on the gun to create renders that show what the third generation of the company’s consumer-grade TWS earbuds will look like.

At a first glance, the AirPods 3 look like a hybrid between the regular AirPods and the AirPods Pro. They feature the same earbud style as the AirPods, but come with a smaller, slightly angled stem, found in the pro-version. This relatively smaller design also translates to changes in the case design, which is definitely shorter and stouter, resembling the kind of case you’d get with the AirPods Pro. Apple’s slated to announce the AirPods 3 sometime this month. They officially called off their March event, but that hasn’t stopped the company from launching products along with press releases. Little is known about how the AirPods 3 will measure up in the specs/performance department, but credible leakers have mentioned that the earbuds may come with AirPods Pro-style active noise canceling.

Designer: Apple

Images via GizmoChina and LeaksApplePro

Innovative personal gadgets that promise to improve your modern millennial life!

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There are certain personal gadgets that you’ll always find on my person and in my handbag! These include my personal mobile phone and my Airpods for sure. They’re the gadgets that I simply cannot live without, and they make my life better in multiple ways. I’m sure there are a few of these on your list as well, and you’re always ready to add more! Hence, we’ve curated a collection of handy and super functional personal gadgets, that promise to make your daily life easier, simpler and efficient. They’re super easy to carry around and just organize your life much more. From ergonomic earphones that double up as a jewelry piece to super-fast SSDs, this range of versatile personal gadgets will make your modern and fast life easier to manage!

Being an audiophile means you take the audio quality and ergonomic fit of your earphones pretty seriously. If you get one that is stylish too, then you are in for a jackpot. Having a pair of earbuds that come with a snug fit, boast style statement and the reassurance of not being misplaced is something you just can’t ignore. We are talking about these earphones that are designed to double up as a jewelry piece. Designed by Yibai Science & Technology from Shenzen, these are called the “Jade Culture Earphone Jue 20.” That’s a bit odd name but everything else about these conceptual wireless earbuds listed on iF Design Award 2020 is super cool. When not in use, the earbuds magnetically lock together to take the form of a necklace pendant that’s suspended by the tethering wire. Then again, when you want to listen to your favorite tunes, simply separate the pendant and get groovy. Picture this scenario – your buddy compliments, “This pendant looks so cool, bud”, and you’ll detach them and plug-in into your ears to their amazement, “It’s my pair of earbuds, mate!” Added bonus – you surely won’t lose one of the earbuds as there is no accidentally falling down- speaking to you AirPods!

Compatible with most USB-C devices, the HybridDrive offsets your need for multiple hubs, dongles, and drives. With a multiport on one end, and an SSD on another, and a USB-C interface connecting the two, the HybridDrive bridges the gap between your portable devices (laptop/tablet/phone) and your desktop – in the sense that it gives you extra ports and expandable storage… something most desktops have in common. The multiport setup comprises a 4K 60Hz HDMI port, two USB-A ports with 10Gbps data transfer, a MicroSD card reader, an SD card reader, and a USB-C which supports 100W of power output along with high-speed video and data transferring. On the other end of the HybridDrive is an SSD that comes in 4 sizes, starting from 128Gb and going all the up to a whopping 2Tb.

OPPO has teamed up with Japanese design studio nendo (founded by Oki Sato) to present a radical three-fold phone concept at the 4th China International Industrial Design Expo (CIIDE) that has this year’s theme as “New Designs, New Trends, New Momentum.” Dubbed as the slide-phone, the motive of the design is to pursue “a comfortable relationship between people and their products through a human-centric approach to design.” Adapting a caterpillar-like moniker for the folding mechanism, the concept phone unfolds to a 7-inch screen with a slim profile, that’s wider screen real estate than most we’ve seen so far. When unfolded to the first fold it reveals the 1.5-inch screen area for basic notifications or functions like music player controls, call history, or more. The second fold reveals the 3.15-inch screen space for clicking photos, video calls, or playing games. Third and the final fold reveals the full widescreen for multitasking, taking panoramic photos, or playing games with an on-screen controller on each side. It even comes with a stylus for professionals, like the one on the Galaxy Note 20 series.

The Pixel smartphone went onto redefine what a pure Android experience could look like, becoming the gold standard in the Android OS experience. James Tsai’s Google Pixel Smartwatch concept does the same for the Android Wear OS. Embodying Google’s playful-serious aesthetic, the Pixel Smartwatch concept comes in a traditional round format, and in a variety of quirkily named colors. The Android Wear OS logo displays clearly on the always-on display of the watch, transforming into a colorful set of watch hands every time you look at it to read the time. The watch comes with Google’s top-notch voice AI, all of Google’s native apps, and a heart-rate monitor on the back, which ties in well with Google’s plan of acquiring Fitbit and their entire fitness-tech ecosystem. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wearable concept were entirely waterproof too, just to fire shots at Apple!

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What’s better than one audio device? A two-in-one! No?! A three-in-one!! I’ve officially hit crazy with the Level x3 Headphones. Just like the Matryoshka dolls, these babies are one big bag of surprises. Designed to be your everything-audio solution, the Level X3 is a pair of in-ear earphones, that fit into headphones. Audio synchronization allows your headphones to continue what you were listening to on your earphones. The only way to top off that awesome idea is to step it up with the Cradle, a docking device for the headphones that not only charges them but acts as an all-in-one speaker.

A portable, wearable, air conditioner is no more a thing of futuristic TV shows. The Reon Pocket is a smartphone-controlled personal gadget that was designed to be compact and cool. It works using thermoelectric cooling and can cool the user’s body temperature by 13 degrees celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and raise your temperature by about 8 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit). Reon sits on the base of your neck in a special undershirt designed for it. It uses the Peltier effect which means a temperature difference is created by applying a voltage between two electrodes connected to a sample of semiconductor material. The heat is absorbed or emitted when you pass an electrical current across a junction to either lower your temperature or increase it without bulk or noise.

One of the most common reasons for accidents on the road is people wearing headphones or earphones while they walk, ride bikes, or drive. Earphones and headphones cut out a lot of ambient noise and we often get lost in the sound which can be unsafe. Portable speakers are not something you can slip into your pocket or carry around in your hand – it is simply inconvenient. That’s when a sleek, unobtrusive, wearable speaker like the BoomBand comes into the picture to give you the best of both worlds – you don’t have to ‘carry’ it and you will still be able to hear important announcements while having your music within your reach. It has six hours of battery life (more than any wireless audio earphones or headphones can claim) so you can actually get away with forgetting your portable Bluetooth speaker at a picnic if you have the BoomBand! Tech Life has designed this personal gadget to release crisp and clear sound while keeping the form as compact as a wristwatch, you can tune it to your desired volume or raise it if you’re the DJ in your social circle. This nifty device is lightweight, comfortable, and blends with your wardrobe seamlessly.

Joel Meredith, a 22-year-old student at the University of Technology Sydney wants to radically change the way we interact with our music, making it hassle-free while being stylish. That’s his idea for an accessory good enough to go with your style quotient and still being functional. Joel calls it the Melo Ring which sits pretty on your finger, and without even lifting your arm, you can interact with your music using touch or swipe gestures via the various sensors located all over the ring. Sharing songs with other Melo Ring users is also possible with the flick of a finger on the minimalistic piece of jewelry. Not only that one can add songs to a playlist, read out song names, or change the playlist without anyone else even noticing. Being more than just an accessory that you wear every day or probably never even take it off – turning it into something functional is the main motivation for the cool idea.

Designed for speed, storage, strength, and to be the subscription-killer (I’ll explain), the ECLLPSE is poised to be the future of data storage. Simply put, the ECLLPSE is a tiny, finger-sized SSD that’s encased in a rugged, virtually unbreakable, waterproof housing. With as much as 2 Terabytes of internal storage, the ECLLPSE gives you a way to store and carry practically all your data around with you, right in your pocket. It comes with multiple adapters built right into its design, giving you the ability to connect it to ALL your devices, from your laptop to your phone, and from your DSLR to your drone, letting you seamlessly back-up, restore, and transfer files between multiple devices. Although with that much storage, comes a pretty major responsibility… transfer speed. It’s a good thing though that the ECLLPSE boasts of reading/write speeds that reach as high as 550MB/s, allowing you to transfer 8K videos in mere minutes. It also means you could use the ECLLPSE as external storage for your PS5 or Nintendo Switch and run games off it with absolutely no lag!

The WGP isn’t exactly what you’d first think of when you hear the term Smart Glasses, but that’s almost purely on Google for creating that definition. The WGP, on the other hand, are smart in the sense that they put your Truly Wireless Smart (TWS) earphones right into your spectacles’ temple-stems. Designed to be entirely modular and seamless, the stems can easily detach from the frame of the glasses and re-attach onto another pair, essentially allowing you to switch out styles without losing functionality. The WGP comes with a pretty exhaustive catalog of frame styles, from sunglasses to reading glasses, and from acetate to metal frames. Just like all glasses, they can be optimized for optical power, have the option of polarized lenses, and even anti-scratch, anti-glare, and blue-light blocking coatings. On the audio front, the WGP Smart Audio Glasses are quite like any pair of TWS earphones you’ve used. They feature a touch-sensitive surface that lets you tap to control playback, answer and reject calls, and even summon your phone’s voice assistant. There’s even a dedicated gesture to trigger WGP’s game mode, which brings audio-video latency down to as little as 50 milliseconds.

Redesigned AirPods Pro Case looks sleeker and slips into your pocket more easily!

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If you’ve ever felt like the AirPods Pro case looks like a dental-floss box, you’re not the only one. The AirPods debuted in 2016, rapidly rising to occupy the #1 place when it came to TWS earphones, but the case sort of feels like an afterthought. It’s clunky and doesn’t really sit well with Apple’s design philosophy of sleekness, so designer Iván Antón decided to redesign it to make it sleeker and more memorable-looking.

Antón’s redesign turns the Apple AirPods Pro case from something that looks like a ‘box of floss’ to a really classy-looking ‘chewing-gum-stick dispenser’. The rounded-box shape gets ditched for a taller and sleeker capsule shape, with lids on both ends, allowing individual earpieces to fit into each end of the case. Sure, the redesign presents some structural issues – like where would one place the Qi charging coil, or the battery, but what Antón’s concept really provides is a sense of variety, while sticking to Apple’s design philosophy of building sleek products.

The redesigned AirPods Pro case also fundamentally changes the UX of the AirPods. The two separate openings house the left and right earphones, and while they do that, they also hint at a behavior that’s common within the AirPods user community of using just one AirPod at a time to maximize battery life. While Antón’s AirPods Pro case redesign is just a fan-made concept, it’s definitely visually interesting… primarily because it highlights that the AirPods don’t NEED to go in a boxy-looking case. Instead, the case could be a whole lot sleeker and easier on the eyes!

Designer: Iván Antón

Marshall’s first True Wireless Earbuds are here and they look like an audiophile’s wet-dream!

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So far, most TWS Earphones we’ve seen have been released by tech companies… and if there’s anything we’ve learnt, is that tech companies aren’t really great when it comes to the actual audio performance. TWS earbuds can’t really stand up to well-engineered, fine-tuned audio gear from true-blue audio companies… so when Marshall steps into the TWS earbud game, you best believe that they’ll bring their 59-years worth of audio firepower into the hardware they design.

Meet the Mode II, Marshall’s first TWS earbuds, designed with the promise to deliver a “thunderous audio experience” with “growling bass, natural-sounding mids and crisp treble,” pumped out through its custom-tuned dynamic 6 mm drivers. The drivers sit within the earphones’ tiny yet ergonomic enclosure. The Mode II comes with four earbud tips to choose from for that perfect fit, and the earphones themselves are designed to be IPX4 water-resistant, which means you can descend into an incredibly sweaty moshpit with them.

Although compact, the Mode II earphones wonderfully reflect Marshall’s audio-forward DNA, from their black faux-leather texture (both on the earpieces as well as the case) designed to pay a hat-tip to their nearly 60-year legacy of building some of the best amplifiers and stage monitors, to the classic M logo emblazoned on each earphone, serving as the iconic branding detail. In fact, unlike most tech-driven TWS earbuds, Marshall’s Mode II are more focused on delivering the crisp, punchy sound that the brand’s associated with. The earbuds come with Bluetooth 5.1 for unrivaled connectivity, as well as touch-enabled surfaces that give you access to Transparency Mode (being able to listen to the world around you) and EQ settings, among other features like summoning your phone’s voice assistant.

Ultimately, that fine tuned sound is only as good as the Mode II’s battery life, which boasts of 5 hours of wireless playback on a full charge, with a further 20 hours of use with the charging case. The Marshall Mode II TWS Earbuds is available to order now for US$179, with shipping starting March 18, 2021.

Designer: Marshall





This Nixie clock and radio with a Hi-Fi speaker is for audiophiles who savor pure vintage!

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In times when we all are so accustomed to platter-served music on our cloud streaming services like Spotify or Tidal, the good old radio is the nostalgic detour we need to refresh our mind, body, and soul. Combine that with a steampunk flavor of vintage Nixie tubes + brass trims, and you’ve got a beautiful little box ready to take you on a melodic journey.

The Retio brings the antique 90’s essence of eye-catchy Nixie tubes and the golden appeal of radio listening for people who value retro things in their modern form. Handcrafted in San Francisco Bay Area with profound attention to detail, the radio clock is crafted from American black walnut. It’s embellished with 360 brass dials and corner trims to give it that cool steampunk appeal. The IN-12 Nixie tubes used in each one of these units are sourced from genuine vintage stock collected in the 90s. That single bit makes the Retio unique in its own rights. For audiophiles who appreciate sublime quality, Retio is the one to have in your living room or bedroom. That’s because it comes with support for AUX and Bluetooth connectivity with a Hi-Fi speaker module that is pure bliss for the ears.

Add to that the clock functionality and you are all prepared to get rid of your desk clock, vintage AM/FM radio, and portable speaker for this beautiful piece of vintage accessory. The light from the glowing Nixie tubes will suffice your need to warmly illuminate the corner of your room, so it’s another added advantage of sporting this in your home interiors. I already can’t get enough of this timeless radio clock, can you?

Designer: Retio

Click Here to Buy Now: $349

This Nike-inspired integrated smart fitness system gives at-home gym workouts the boost it needs!

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There have been some pretty innovative design solutions for home gyms in the age of COVID-19, ranging from adaptive gym modules that utilize smart technology for instruction to more discreet gym equipment that disguises as home furniture. While most of us are staying at home for these workouts, ensuring we all have the equipment needed can still get messy and some of us have neighbors living below and next to us, so we have to compromise when it comes to how loud we get. Swift Creatives, a Scandinavian design studio located in Aarhus, Denmark, recently debuted Smart Fitness, an integrated smart workout system that equips your home workout with all the gym-related accessories you might need.

The team at Swift Creatives got inspired by Nike and designed Smart Fitness for athletes at every level of any given sport to have a single system supplied with five smart workout accessories: a foam roller that doubles as a speaker, weighted jump rope, headphones, and water bottle. Foam rollers are a Godsend and essential for use following a heavy workout. Designed to help relieve muscle tension, increase your joint range of motion, and promote blood flow – foam rolling is an athlete’s bread and butter. Since foam rollers are supposed to be firm for purpose and by design, Swift Creatives took the opportunity to enclose a speaker inside the heavy-duty foam so that music can play while rolling.

The included jump rope is balanced and customizable for different workout weights and athlete heights. The jump rope’s cables can be switched out to either lighten the lift or load it on. Additionally, a built-in counter and timer keep track of every rope session so you won’t ever lose count. With integrated music connectivity, Smart Fitness can link up each workout accessory, like the breathable smart headphones, to your smartphone or smartwatch so that you can easily play music from your preferred streaming platform. Bringing its own unique edge to the workout, Smart Fitness’s magnetic water bottle also comes equipped with smart control switches that activate a UV-C LED light cleaning cycle so you can keep your focus on the workout.

Designer: Swift Creatives Studio

These animal shaped IoT home appliances bring some light to our Corona-blues!

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In relation to technology, the concept of “untact marketing” refers to smart products and services that require no human contact. Untact marketing schemes and technological services have risen in numbers since the start of the 2020 pandemic because no longer is AI intelligence and smart technology considered an exciting exception, but it has become the norm. As a means of following this paradigm shift, S2VICTOR designed a collection of untact IoT home appliances, called Animal Land, to resemble different animals, bringing in some lighthearted fun into this seemingly endless pandemic.

In order to convey an ecosystem’s natural and simple life cycles, the Animal Land collection consists of a giraffe-shaped router, a whale-shaped diffuser, and a home speaker shaped to resemble a turtle. All three of the home appliances are connected with one another through smart home technology and can be separately managed with an accompanying app. S2VICTOR chose the shape of a giraffe to form their router as the giraffe’s long neck resembles a long antenna. Equipped with motion sensors and voice recognition capabilities, the giraffe-shaped router caters to the needs of everyone in each given home. The whale-shaped diffuser is first and foremost an aromatic refresher but incorporates special smart technology in order to enhance its untact nature. In addition to its main purpose of diffusing different aromas, Animal Land’s whale-shaped diffuser also measures humidity, air quality, and the atmosphere in any given home, transmitting useful information for each resident inside without requiring them to open a weather app. Finally, Animal Land includes a home speaker device shaped like a turtle, which comes equipped with smart technology in order to provide fast response time and voice recognition features. The home speaker’s playful disguise might indicate a slower speed, but an engraving underneath the home speaker’s shell reads, “I’m not slow,” revealing the speaker’s high-speed response time and connectivity.

In order for many modern products and services to be able to compete with today’s market, the inclusion of untact technology is a prerequisite. Overall, it seems that Animal Land’s true inspiration is found in the collection’s playful facade. Animal Land from S2VICTOR recognizes the urgency behind the untact movement and meets it with both a playful design and sense of humor to make light of these grim global circumstances.

Designer: S2VICTOR

 

Samsung’s TWS Earphone cases are just FILLED with 90s clamshell nostalgia!

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So much happened in the last week that it’s common for announcements to either spill into the following weeks, or go completely unnoticed. In a few ways, this product is a bit of both. Announced alongside Samsung’s entire roster of Galaxy Unpacked products is a little something called Anycall, a faux phone model designed for one purpose and one purpose only… nostalgia!

Meet the Anycall cases, a set of wonderful covers for the Samsung’s Galaxy Buds case. Much like how Elago’s cases give the AirPods a unique character, the Anycall cases turn the Samsung Galaxy Buds into a set of incredibly nifty-looking 90s style clamshell phones! Obviously, the phones are non-operational and are just for the aesthetic, but they do give the TWS earphones a neat, nostalgic spin! Available in 2 styles (with and without an antenna), the Anycall T100 or Anycall E700 give your Galaxy Buds cases a distinct 90s vibe that’s sure to appeal to a certain group of people. I’m sure there’s a certain satisfaction to opening the cases and shutting them with authority too, almost as if you’re violently hanging up on a robocaller. The cases are available as in-store gifts when the Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds are purchased in-person in retail outlets in South Korea, and are even listed online on Samsung’s website as optional addons for when you’re buying the Galaxy Buds. They’re a little on the pricey side, costing $30 per case… but can you really put a price tag on nostalgia??

Designer: Samsung

This WFH office kit comes with AR glasses, a smartpen, and an AI speaker to streamline group projects!

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We’ve been working from home for a while now. I’ve honestly last track of how long it’s been, but we’ve managed to avoid going stir crazy (so far) thanks to home renovation projects. Redesigning our workspaces so that they accommodate the growing list of the needs of today is essential to keep from losing our heads. Fortunately, with today’s ever-evolving technology, designs like MAZI from Younghyun Kim help make working from home a little more exciting.

MAZI consists of three different pieces of technology: an AI speaker, a pair of AR glasses, and an accompanying smartpen. Since group tasks such as marketing campaigns or architectural conceptualizations seem a lot more organized when each worker is in the same room, MAZI comes equipped with AR glasses that enable coworkers to share their visual perspective with other team members. For instance, while working on a sketch, an architect can literally share their line of sight with a collaborator so they can see the sketches in real-time, the same way we once could in the office. MAZI’s AI-powered speaker, which doubly functions as a carrying case, helps keep your hands-free while speaking with fellow team members, only raising the bar for the product’s goal of streamlining each workday. Secure in a carrying case, both the smartpen and AR glasses snugly fit into precisely shaped pockets. The smartpen from MAZI remains locked with a fingerprint scanner that only registers the owner’s prints, keeping your private business details secure and locked.

Once upon a time, work was entirely contained in one designated space: the office. With stay-at-home orders commencing early with the start of 2020, the office’s hub of fullscreen monitors, cable webs, and project workstations was forced to find a compromise in the form of working from home. Meaning ‘together,’ in Greek, MAZI was designed to provide workers with a portable office kit for those long WFH days spent in the living room on the phone with business partners. While collaborative, performance projects can easily be discussed through a phone call or e-mail chain, sharing a screen isn’t the same thing as sharing your vision.

Designer: Younghyun Kim

These TWS Earphones are solving the tech waste crisis with removable replaceable batteries

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Watch any AirPods teardown video and there’s one thing you’ll quickly notice. There’s no way you can put it back together once you’ve disassembled it. The damned things are hermetically sealed shut, and opening them means damaging them. In fact, Apple doesn’t even fix AirPods that come to them for servicing. The design is so notoriously un-fixable that it’s actually cheaper for Apple to replace them with a new pair.

Now that problem isn’t unique to Apple. Almost every single TWS earphone faces the same issue. Designed to be small, these earphones have absolutely tiny batteries that don’t last beyond a year, and their small bodies/components are almost always fused/glued together with no intention of ever being separated for repair or even recycling. The result is an overwhelming wave of tiny electronics that can’t be reused and can’t be disassembled and disposed of safely. They’re made of metal and plastic, which won’t biodegrade, and even contain toxic lithium-ion batteries within them.

To overcome this problem, the NOVO TWS earphones have a unique and clever compromise. Microphones, speaker drivers, and SOCs (system on chips) are usually designed to last 4-5 years, whereas those batteries go dead within a year or 18 months. The NOVO earbuds just turn the batteries into a modular unit that can easily be replaced… a feature you’d see in old mobile phones before they began becoming sealed, unibody devices. Unlike phones, however, these battery modules are designed to sit on the outside, and come in a variety of colors with ornamental patterns, adding a fashionable flair to the earphones. Every few years when the batteries wear out, you can simply switch the modules for new ones, choosing from a variety of colors and textures to ‘upgrade’ your earbuds. The old batteries get swapped in at the company which provides a discount on the new batteries, closing the loop and creating a circular economy where batteries are recycled and perfectly capable tech doesn’t enter a landfill because one single part was designed to go prematurely obsolete.

Designer: Batu Sozen