OnePlus founder Carl Pei’s Nothing takes on Apple with Ear 1 headphones



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LONDON – The co-founder of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus is challenging Apple with a cheaper alternative to the tech giant’s popular wireless headphones.

Carl Pei helped create OnePlus along with his former colleague Pete Lau in 2013. OnePlus has attracted an audience by making inexpensive Android phones with attractive specs. Pei left the company in October.

Now, Pei is back with a new hardware company called Nothing, which aims to develop a series of smart devices connected through an app. On Tuesday, the London-based start-up launched its first product, a set of wireless headphones called Ear 1.

The headphones are “truly wireless” which means there is no cord connecting them together. They come with active noise cancellation, similar to AirPods Pro. But at $ 99, they’re much cheaper than Apple’s mid-range headphones, which cost $ 249, as well as Samsung’s $ 200 Galaxy Buds Pro.

“We have seen that the true wireless market is growing quite rapidly this year,” Pei, 31, told CNBC. “It was like a place where we could make a difference.”

According to Counterpoint Research, sales of true wireless headphones reached 233 million units in 2020 and are expected to exceed 300 million units this year.

Pei’s business faces stiff competition. Last year, Apple accounted for almost a third of the market, while the Chinese Xiaomi and Samsung were the second and third largest players in terms of market share.

But Pei believes that most consumer technology today is “cold” and believes there are plenty of opportunities for a newbie to gain a foothold in the market.

“There is a general lack of interest in consumer technology,” said Pei. “Instead, there’s a lot of negativity around the technology – the tech companies being monopolistic, privacy issues and so on – and if you look at the products, it also becomes more iterative and less fun.”

design quirks

Nothing hopes that a few quirks in the design of Ear 1 can help it differentiate itself from its rivals. For one thing, Nothing’s headphones show users the magnets that connect to its case, which are usually hidden in most wireless headphones.

The unusual demand to make the magnets visible led two factories to part ways with Nothing because it was seen as too small a business, Pei said.

The case of the Ear 1 is also transparent and has a dimple between the two buttons for easier handling.

Another unusual design choice with the Ear 1 is the absence of the letters “L” and “R” to show users which earbud is on the left and which is on the right. Instead, the right earbud has a red dot while the left one has a white dot.

According to Pei, the color “red” would translate to “good” for many fans of hardcore audio. With RCA audio cables, for example, red usually represents the correct audio channel.

Design quirks aside, nothing says the Ear 1 can play music for up to 5.7 hours of listening time after a single charge and up to 34 hours with its case on – longer than AirPods. Pro. Each bud weighs 4.7 grams.

It comes with three different mics, two of which collect ambient noise while the third focuses on vocals. Nothing says it also uses machine learning to block out different types of background noise.

The Buds are tied to an app that includes four different EQ settings and three noise cancellation modes, Pei said.

Availablity

A limited number of Ear 1 units will ship on July 31. Nothing has been said, while open sales will begin on August 17. In Britain, the headphones will be available at the Selfridges luxury department store.

Nothing auctioned off 100 limited-edition engraved versions of the Ear 1 on the StockX Marketplace last week, with one unit fetching $ 1,029.

The exclusive nature of Ear 1’s debut is reminiscent of older OnePlus phone launches, which were often invitation-only.

Nothing has raised more than $ 20 million to date from investors including Alphabet’s GV, iPod inventor Tony Fadell and YouTube star Casey Neistat. The company aims to raise funds again later this year or early 2022.

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