What does Nothing need to distinguish itself in the TWS space?

thekidunderpanic · 2021-05-19T05:16:12+00:00

Truly wireless earbuds are everywhere. What do you think Nothing should do to stand apart from the crowd?

russbuss

All great points above! Something that hasn’t been mentioned so far is comfort. Even with the most advanced sound quality and noise cancellation, none of that would mean anything if the ear buds are uncomfortable and you can’t wear them for prolonged periods of time.

Ideally, wearing them should feel like wearing Nothing at all, but that would be difficult to achieve as everyone has different ear structures. Despite occasional drop-out issues, I love my Pixel buds 2 as they are flat and discreet and do not protrude out much from my ears. I watch a lot of video content laying on my side and they don’t feel uncomfortable even with my ear pressed against the pillow.

It should also be possible to use each earbud independently, as opposed to Jabra elites which don’t allow use of the left earbud alone as it connects to the right earbud instead of the device.

Leonnidas

Interesting to see what everyone is using

From my side:

OnePlus 8 (have been a OnePlus fan since the OnePlus One, but they’re clearly changing for the worse)
Bose Quietcomfort NC earbuds (great!)
Mechanical watches (tried many smart watches and gave up - a tracking band that could go discreetly next to a mechanical watc

russbuss

would be great)

Leonnidas

russbuss : I totally agree with you. Comfort is the number one requirement for earbuds that feel like Nothing. My Bose QC earbuds are the closest I have found to the ideal comfort, but they still fall short. If Nothings finds a way to solve this, while meeting the other requirements mentioned here to a decent extent, you will have a winner.

scarbo

I couldn’t agree more with most of you guys; so I’m even happier to be part of this community, we’re already on the same page 🙂

I’ll highlight some good points you made:

1. Smart Assistants (@Dylan_B) ➡️ facilitate interaction with the world (jarvis experience @IbrahimVK)

2. They should be invisible (@Mouniesha) and comfortable (@russbuss), an ear extension I’d say ➡️ this leads to Seamless Connectivity (@Kota)

3. High sound quality (@Surya_8055) and perfect balance between Noise Cancellation and Ambient Mode (@Kota)

I also think the user should care less and less about setting things in an app, and I mean it for every piece of tech we own, not just earbuds. That’s why it’s important to aim for a jarvis experience: we should forget about the product, this one instead should be ready and useful whenever we recall it.

IbrahimVK

scarbo

Well said brother 😊👍

Felix

As I have a background in sustainability, a focus to distinguish from competition is to take a more sustainable approach, which I believe/hope will increasingly drive demand. I prefere a high quality product (sound & phone calls) with limited function, that rather costs a bit more but keeps me happy for more than 2 years. :

This could be achieved through the following ways:

High quality/state of the art products =>not being outdated immediately
Quality/Long-lasting materials (might mean more expensive tws) => not buidling products that purposely are built to be exchanged every 1-2 years
Long software compatibilty
Exchangeable batteries would be a game changer in this space imho => Extends product lifetime
Generally easier repairable products => Extening lifetime

scarbo

Felix

Very good point. As you may know, earlier this year France enacted a new law (the first of its kind in the world) in order to keep smartphones out of the dump.

Imho governments and companies should work together in this sustainability path, both making steps toward a sustainable society.

DamanjeetTrehan

thekidunderpanic

Seamless Connectivity - Whether I pair them with any OS or UI I should be able to use all it’s features.
Better Touch Response - I need the touch response even better than apple airpods.
Better Sound Quality - Sound quality needs to be well optimized but definitely mic needs to get better everywhere..
Features - Tested galaxy buds bro few days back. It has a feature that when you start talking it can automatically turns on noise cancellation.
Battery - Must be well enough to give at least 6 hours of playback and charge of like 3-4 times.
Design - I believe that it must be able to look different and should be eye-catching.
Build Quality - Most of the times any TWS will fall out and it gets damaged very easily. It must able to take that fall and survive.
Value For Money - The most important thing is even after asking so much, in a market like India the pricing of product must be taken a not from all it’s competitors. We’ll be a new brand profits are definitely necessary but @Carl like oneplus please don’t let anything happen to NOTHING. We have to stay community driven and focus on providing the customers everything.

sheynk

Carl

Really depends on the price point for the Ear(1). For iOS users, you are going straight after the Beats/Airpods combo or the Airpods Pro and for Android after Pixel Buds, Sony WF 1000XM3, etc.

At base level - battery case, rock solid connection, target low/mid range (215+) Shure in-ears sound wise. USB-C.
At higher level - wireless charging battery case, ANC, target mid/high (425+) Shure in-ears. USB-C.

With Android - if you are beating the Sonys on punchy sound quality (the ANC is really good there), design, battery - you have a winner. They are the benchmark.

With iOS its a bit tougher. Key is outperform battery and sound quality … cause pairing w/o the w1 will never be as smooth but people will buy the image/quality side of things.

arpan2308

Carl

Audio quality & connection are i think hygiene. Microphone quality (missing in most TWS & neckbands) & noise cancellation (in mic as well as audio) will be the key to the success. Design anyways will be quite unique, so that is sorted.

arpan2308

Carl

Actually, I am looking forward for a “Nothing” mode on Ear1. Just noise cancellation with no audio, literally nothing in your ears. You can say it sleep mode 😛…will surely help in this noise pollution

Carl

arpan2308

To achieve this on any pair of earphones with noise cancellation, you can simply stop playing your music/sounds. 😆

Surya_8055

@Carl#

Carl

LOL 😂😂

arpan2308

Carl

😂😂

Shankar

Carl

Everyone mentioned several excellent points. So I have two suggestions potentially differentiating on fundamental levels.

Right now every big player is shipping their TWS with fancy yet inefficient bluetooth codecs. To make TWS future-proof, ‘Nothing’ could ship the TWS with some low-powered WiFi or similar band chip(s) which could be enabled in future via OTA updates. As of now, there are no WiFi-based codec standards for audio transfer but the upcoming Nothing’s device could also include dual wireless chips, one for usual WiFi services and another one potentially low-powered and on the different band just for IOT devices like TWS, Smart Watch, Speakers etc. ‘Nothing’ could develop brand new proprietary wireless codec standard for the Nothing’s ecosystem devices.

My other suggestion is based on another fundamental which is not yet pioneered by any of the current players. That’s ‘Mics in TWS’! ‘Nothing’ could potentially do R&D on how the TWS could have some hybrid version of condenser mic(s) in such a smaller compact form.

SriBhaskarBonam_QsJ0pGMhZK

I am very late to this discussion but most of the folks have covered everything that’s there to….

I am eagerly waiting for the Ear 1 to launch and doesn’t wanna keep high expectations apart from the one simple factor that is “Ear 1” wouldn’t be NOTHING short of the other products which are already existing in market…

Below are the basic ones which I feel we can matter a lot…

There are many users who would stick to their respective Mobile brands for TWS as its been kind of a notion in market, such as for example, iphone to iphone products wouldn’t have any issues (connectivity and syncing issues for basic) rather than a iphone to Non iphone wireless products.

So the Ear 1 product has to satisfy these users that they can shift to Nothing even though on whatever device they’re on. SPECS are so important
Design and comfort does matter a lot
We would definitely want a personal assistant Jarvis and hope we get that in future. However, it if would be cool if we can have Ear 1 product readout our text messages and notifications along with the device being waterproof.

As I said in the beginning, I am looking for a Ear1 product which is NOTHING short of the other’s products

shivam

Carl

@Carl Can we have the option to mute/unmute our mic directly from Ear 1? Maybe through a gesture or optional settings? Haven’t seen this feature with any existing TWS. Will be really helpful!

JR-

Wouldnt it be great if you could snapshot the audio moment you’re having

What I mean by that: while running, during workout, commuting,… and listening to a podcast - you might want to bookmark the last 20 seconds you listened for later reference (today I’m pausing, and taking notes while running)

Or when listening to spotify, I want to easily add a song to my favorites - (not necessarily in spotify)

iambhuvan

thekidunderpanic

@Carl

I would say that an Nothing ear1 TWS should connect to the users on an emotional level through its design.

tanzil

I think Nothing should take a look at the fake airpods out there, they can connect to iphones with the same deep intergrations as the real airpods up to find my airpods part! That will maybe solve the ios connection problem. Sound quality wise i think Monster did a very good job on their TWS, Nothing should try it too. Monster is selling at an interesting price point too for the sound quality. For the app, try looking at soundcore’s app, i think they have the most interesting app for TWS. From there, i think Nothing will come up with interesting combinations

fsoutomiebach

Here are some ideas regarding daily life user experience:

I use an Android phone, a Windows laptop and an iPad Pro for university. Thus, I often have to switch the input device. Right now, I use Airpods Pro which is sometimes very annoying because mic and overall sound quality are not evenly distributed. For example, I can only use the crappy mic from the Airpod’s phone mode on Windows but on an iPad it’s so good that I could record a Podcast with it. This implies that Nothing should try to include the right software which ensures seamlessness between devices and constant audio and mic quality.
Also, the sound profiles should be adjustable to the extent that one can attend meetings in the morning, go to the gym with fast music and then watch a movie later on - all with satisfying quality.
This also means that the buds themselves and the charging case are portable and quickly chargeable -> Wireless charging ideally.
In regards to noise cancelling, many competitors are still struggling with excluding higher sounds and thus make the experience rather unnatural. It then could help to have at least a good sealing towards the environment.
As a result, the buds should be as well-fitting as possible. -> Offering a good amount of earpieces that account for the variety of ear shapes
When it comes to robustness and sustainable use of the products they should be very well built and stand the human and external forces that are constantly exerted on the buds. Those of course are sweat/liquids, pressure from the ear, scratches by keyrings in trouser pockets on the case, dust on the charging port, heat and damage through dropping the headphones to the floor etc.

fsoutomiebach

Regarding robustness:

As many pieces as possible should be replaceable or at least be repairable at an affordable price.

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