Translation hearables are officially here. Bragi's new Dash Pro smart earbuds with real-time translation skills have already started shipping and now Australian startup Lingmo is getting ready to launch its first translating earpiece as well.
The Translate One2One earpiece, which is equipped with a built-in microphone doesn't look anywhere near as sleek or discreet a solution as Bragi's or the much anticipated Pilot buds from Waverly Labs, but it does promise to translate spoken conversations or written text within 3-5 seconds. It's not instant, but that's still pretty quick.
Read this: The current state of real-time translation hearables
It covers English, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German and Chinese using IBM's Watson Natural Language Understanding and Language Translator APIs along with Lingmo's own hardware to perform the translating magic. There's no need for a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to use it either, which means it could come in handy if you're stuck somewhere that's lacking a decent internet connection.
The good news is that the One2One is going to be available in July this year and you can order it from the Lingmo website right now. One earpiece will cost you $179 with a 2 piece travel pack also available for $229. The site says you should allow for 4 to 6 weeks in terms of delivery time.
We fully expected the Pilot earbuds, which raised over $4 million through crowdfunding last year to be the first translation hearable on the scene but clearly that's not going to be the case. When we spoke to Waverly Labs, the startup behind Pilot back in March this year, CEO Andrew Ochoa said it was still on track to ship this summer as well. It's a similar story for the Mymanu Clik smart earbuds, which are expected to launch in the coming months too.
So that's Bragi Dash Pro, Pilot, Mymanu Clik and the Translate One2One that all want to make learning languages truly a thing of the past. All hail the translation hearable.
How we test
By Michael Sawh
Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.
He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.
Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech.
Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.