Credit: Earin
Ever wanted discreet headphones without those annoying, tangling wires? Meet the Earin, the world’s smallest wireless earphones. The concept behind these clutter-free in-ear speakers – now in the funding process on Kickstarter – was inspired by the 2008 romcom “Definitely, Maybe,” which shows actor Ryan Reynolds wearing two minimalist music earbuds on the way to work. “Back then, the technology required for the earbuds was not available but now we’ve got our first prototypes,” Swedish designer and founder of the Earin, Olle Lindén, told Metro.
Are wireless earphones they the future?
It’s indeed the future and there have many benefits. We developed this product because when listening to music, we often move around a bit. The cables always get stuck somewhere and then we tend to pull the earbuds out of the ears. Another issue with cables is the sound they make when they rub on our clothes or whatever. Plus, they’re almost invisible to the world – which is nice.
What’s the sound like if they’re so small?
The Earin uses Bluetooth technology called AptX, which we call “lossless”. This means that compared to a wire, you will not hear any difference at all. All information that you could be heard via a cable is transferred wirelessly, so basically it doesn’t matter if you have cables or not, from an audio perspective.
It runs on rechargeable batteries, but they can explode from time to time. How safe are they inside your ear?
There are concerns regarding safety. But we have been very cautious about choosing our supplier since we want a trustworthy source and the choice came to a company in Germany. The batteries are actually the single most expensive component but from a safety perspective we believe it’s worth it. Our supplier has tested these batts to withstand temperatures of 130 degrees Celsius. We are not making any mistakes before even selling to us.
How do you safeguard this gadget from being stolen?
The Earins, due to their size and discreet nature, reduce the risk of being stolen, but, frankly, it’s nothing we haven’t considered. However, this could very well be an advantage or feature that we have foreseen. Our vision has simply been to make them magically small.
