Hearing is something that once lost, is neigh impossible to recover fully; which is why it’s so important to preserve our ability to hear as much as we can. With concerts on the rise in Singapore and music and loud sounds being part of any event, people often end up unprepared in these high volume situations without any protection for their ears.
The Here One’s are a pair of ear-buds that can help with that, amongst a myriad of other things it can do. These ear-buds, besides listening to music, can augment the sound from around you in real-time. This is handy for music events where the user would like to protect their hearing and still enjoy the music un-muffled as cheap ear buds may do.
The Here One’s are controlled through a phone app, where you can fine tune a whole multitude of variables. You can EQ your music and the world around you, block out specific frequencies (eg. if you want to tone down a certain instrument in the band, you can alter the frequencies that the instrument lies in), you can even add effects to your world for fun, like reverb, distortion and even flange the audio.
The downsides however, are it’s battery life, 2 hours. It comes with a carrying case that doubles as a charger with a charge time of an hour. Some would argue that situations where you’d use the earbuds wouldn’t be much longer than 2 hours usually and that a larger battery would only contribute to a longer charge time as well. Which brings to mind an important portion of making devices, where a conscious decision has to be made to strike a balance in issues with usability.
There are also limits to it’s control over real world audio. If the volume is too low and the seal between the buds and the ear canal is too loose then sound leaks back in past the buds. This however can also be solved with appropriately sized buds/custom fit buds and perhaps tweaking noise cancelling software.
Lastly, the Hear Ones aren’t the only ones in the market, the iQbuds are an often compared competitor and of course there are pros and cons to both. I think either are a suitable purchase for any hearing protection/augmentation needs in this increasingly loud world.
