These ear capsules might be the wireless multifunction headphones you've been waiting for
A new pair of wireless headphones by Human Inc. can morph into a portable loudspeaker and allows multiple users to connect and listen to a single audio source.
A startup company in Seattle that secured a $5 million investment round back in April just announced its secret weapon: a pair of strange-looking wireless ear-pod headphones that can shift from a private listening device into a portable loudspeaker, and more.
In a press release published on its Web site today, Human Inc. makes it clear that its intention with the Sound program is to upend the traditional headphone experience and create a brand new category in personal audio devices.
The problem with most completely wireless Bluetooth earbuds is that the housing always feels a little too bulky to sit comfortably in your ears. It's an unfortunate hardware sacrifice at this stage in the game, where manufacturers are having trouble fitting all the radio transmission components into a compact package.
Human Inc.'s Sound program headphones are completely wireless and incorporate a "total-encapsulation" design that appears to somehow attach directly on top of your ears, giving the wearer a strange-looking Elven ear shape, minus the pointy tips.
Its core function will be for use as headphones, but it's still a mystery about how they'll actually connect to a source since the release doesn't mention which wireless technology will be used in the final product.
The release also talks up other ways to use the Sound program device, although those descriptions are vague on those details, too. They can augment ambient sounds in your immediate environment similar to the Doppler Labs Here device, they have the ability to connect multiple listeners users to a single source, and they double as a portable speaker that can supposedly surpass the sound quality and volume of most smartphones.
All that really does make the Sound program out to be a game-changer in the personal audio space, but you'll have to wait awhile before throwing your credit card at these: Human Inc. hasn't announced any release dates yet.
Right now, all we have are the Facebook and Instagram pages for updates, which right now only serve as teasers for the program. Human Inc.'s co-founder and CMO Joe Dieter tells us that the company will announce new features coming to the Sound program every month for the rest of the year, so keep checking back as we update this story.