Bluetooth Earphone Earrings: Integrating Audio into Accessories

Have you ever been jamming out to your favorite song and right when the beat is about to drop your airpods die? Or how many times have you gotten home from a crazy night only to realize that one of your earrings got lost somewhere on the way? Well fret not, Nova has a solution that can coincidentally resolve both of these problems and they come in the form of a bluetooth earring. 

While the brand is still in its early stages they managed to surpass their kickstarter goal by 146 percent and are planning to start shipping by October. As the first clip-on earphones in the market, it comes as no surprise that people are excited for the product. The earrings are the perfect blend of utility and aesthetics. 

Weighing only 6g the design of the earring is simple. It is a real pearl and buyers have the option in between silver or gold hardware for the clip. The goal of the product was to camouflage the listening device by embedding it in the pearl therefore the average onlooker simply sees an earring. The really unique feature of the earrings are what Nova calls an “out-of-ear technology”.

Unlike traditional bluetooth earphones, the Nova’s earrings do not go inside of your ear due to the design of the product. Rather the focus is really in the technology where the sound is transported from the earring to the ear canal through “directional sound”. The creators highlight how they wanted to ensure that the wearer could be connected to the outside world while still being able to listen to their music or take phone calls. 

Tech accessories are trending right now and brands are realizing the potential of the market. The wearable hearable market is still small but growing, and Apple Airpods currently account for more than 50 percent of the hearables shipment market.

Brands like Bose have joined the game with the launch of their bluetooth sunglasses. Similar to the earrings, the speakers are built into the arms of the sunglasses which positions the sound to go straight into the wearer’s ears. Wareable just recently published a “Top hearables of 2021” list and all the products are earphones with Apple and Samsung being at the top. These companies along with Google and Amazon are the lead tech innovators and the market is very competitive. 

“Women have used earrings for 7,000 years. We’ve just upgraded the experience” says Vlad Perianu, co-founder of Nova. If people are already putting on earrings every day why not make them utilitarian?

The brand is marketing towards the utility of the product and unlike regular bluetooth headphones that need to be removed when they are not in use, the ultra sleep mode function allows for the wearer to keep the earrings on all day. When consumers purchase tech accessories they are usually in search of convenience and this is what Nova is capitalizing on. 

Tech accessories always seem exciting at the moment but we have to consider the limitations as well. Companies such as Swing Hearables or LUXE bluetooth attempted to enter the tech earring market but unfortunately neither made it past the kickstarter phase. Swing Hearables really meant swing, as the headphone was actually built into the hanging part of the earring which could then be twisted and placed into the ear. LUXE bluetooth took a different approach by making fashionable ear cuffs that doubled as bluetooth. Although both approaches are innovative they were unable to make it to the market. Nova seems to have taken the most convenient approach with a design similar to the top selling wearable hearables. 

Nova makes a great case about utility in fashion and there are really no drawbacks to the bluetooth earrings. But are we ready for these tech accessories? The support they received in their kickback says yes, but only time will tell.