Is there anything this crowdfund gadget doesn't do?
The Vinci 3D Smart Headphones are currently tearing up Kickstarter and it’s easy to see why. They are essentially a phone on your ears – the hefty hearable stores and plays music, has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 aptX and 3G connections (via a sim card), a voice assistant and activity tracking.
Starting at $149 Kickstarter price (down to $99 early bird), the Vinci hearable has already smashed its $50,000 Kickstarter target with 36 days left on the campaign. We imagine it will rack up more pledges quickly.
Read this: The best smart hearables and earbuds you can buy right now
Then again, it’s not the most subtle wearable tech look. There’s a 3.2-inch touchscreen on one side of the headphones which is how you can touch control what you’re doing. We assume you can choose to not display what your listening to or your heart rate, say. The ‘phones weigh 260g and have a battery life of 10 hours for playback.
Music-wise, Vinci will stream or play downloaded tracks from Spotify, Soundcloud and Amazon Music with 16GB storage on the standard model. AI will make suggestions on what you want to listen to and learn your behaviours. And there’s also binaural 3D sound plus head tracking sensors.
If the company behind it, Inspero, can actually build all this into one wearable product for the shipping date of April 2017, you can also expect an accelerometer and gyroscope plus optical HR and even GPS. If you go for the more expensive Vinci Pro, you’ll also get noise cancelling, 32GB storage and better sound quality – the retail price will be $299 but you can get a pair for $189 now.
Now, usually we’d be skeptical but fellow tech journos have tried out the device and confirm it’s legit plus Inspero has been holding demo days. This pair of do-it-all cans certainly won’t be for everyone (we don’t think this is where hearable design is heading), but it’s worth a $99 punt on features alone.