There’s a new debutant not only vying for a spot in our best earbuds guide, but also for the title of smartest earbuds we could ever wish for, called the Iyo One. These are more than just earplugs: according to the makers, they are also your new computer. And you can buy them later this year.
That’s because Iyo is all about “audio computing,” a collection of apps that essentially listen to you and do your bidding. And the Iyo One claims to be “the first audio computer” — although the various neural headphone makers we saw at CES and the researchers who created AI noise-canceling cans that can hone just one voice might beg to differ.
The oversized earbuds are all about AI. In fact, the One is a different take on the personal assistant in an industry that recently saw some other contenders, the Humane Ai Pin and the Rabbit R1, crash and burn. It’s intended to be a standalone AI device, but this time it’s not being built as an entirely new kind of product, but as an improved version of a product we’re already familiar with: true wireless earbuds. Albeit a very large wireless earbud.
The promise here is similar to that of the Ai Pin and the Rabbit: apps without screens. The examples Iyo offers include real-time language translation, coaching during training and general life organization. The audio features include spatial audio, head tracking and AI-enhanced voice amplification. Oh, and the battery is promised to last all day.
Are these AI earbuds the next big thing?
There’s a law named after technology journalist Ian Betteridge: According to Betteridge’s law, any headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with ‘no’. And I suspect this article will be no exception for several reasons.
The first reason is that the earbuds category is dominated by the biggest names in technology and audio: Apple, Google, Sony, Bose and so on. It is very difficult for new entrants to gain a foothold in that market, although it is of course not impossible: nothing has done a good job in that respect. But nevertheless, the barriers to entry are significant, and will remain so for the second reason.
The second reason is that the USP of the Iyo One is no longer as U as yesterday, when Apple announced that it would introduce Apple Intelligence in products like the AirPods. That will all come later this year when the Iyo Ones are launched. And other companies are already working on AI earbuds: Again, Nothing is doing interesting things with the Nothing Ear integration with ChatGPT.
To get around these issues, Iyo positions these earbuds as high-end audio hardware. That’s an industry the company is already in, thanks to the ruinously expensive Vad Pro IEMs, which will set you back $1,650. The Iyo One earbuds are expected to be a little cheaper than that, but they’re still pricey: $599 (or about £470, or AU$907) for the Wi-Fi-only version and $699 for the cellular version, Although this is different from previous AI devices, there is no monthly subscription on top. But it’s still a lot of money, even for premium earbuds, which rarely exceed $350.
But there’s another problem, and for me it’s the big problem: AI feels like a very inflated bubble right now, with many companies promising incredible things and delivering significantly less incredible products.
For example, the AI Pin sounded great, but ended up getting some of the worst reviews of any tech product I’ve seen in years; the Rabbit did not fare much better. Even Google is still doing damage control after its AI summaries failed to tell the difference between information and Onion articles. That pattern of overpromising, overhyping, and underdelivering means that the more exciting an AI product sounds, the more cynicism I bring to it.
I hope I’m wrong, because I’m still excited about the prospect of really useful screen-free computing. But with Google, Apple and others investing heavily in bringing AI to products that people already know and love, and that cost far less money, AI in competing products can’t just mean Artificial Intelligence: to break their grip on the market , has to be nothing less than Absolutely Incredible.
