Nothing’s first headphones will cost $ 99 and feature noise cancellation

Nothing’s first headphones, the Nothing Ear (1), will cost $ 99 / € 99 / £ 99 and feature Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), company founder Carl Pei said. TechCrunch. Each earbud will be fitted with three microphones to activate the ANC, according to the company, and will initially be released in the UK, India, Europe and North America after their announcement on July 27.

Pei, who previously co-founded OnePlus, uses in-ear noise cancellation (1) to position the headphones as a competitor to Apple’s $ 249 AirPods Pro. However, noise cancellation is increasingly common on true mid-range wireless headphones. The Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro costs $ 130, for example, while Amazon’s second-gen Echo Buds include ANC and start at $ 120. However, there are still plenty of non-noise canceling headphones out there at this price point, like the recently released Pixel Buds A-Series by Google.

The founder of Nothing also used the TechCrunch interview to clarify why the company decided to acquire the Essential brand. “[B]before we called ourselves Nothing, ‘Essential’ was one of the names we were thinking about, internally, ”said Pei TechCrunch. “That’s why we acquired the brand. We don’t plan to do anything with Essential. The smartphone maker, which was started by Android creator Andy Rubin after leaving Google, shut down in early 2020 after releasing just one phone.