The Hearable Awakening

<p><strong>Apple’s release of the AirPods in 2016 has transformed the wireless headphone industry. The earbuds have enjoyed widespread success with over </strong><a href="https://www.kevinrooke.com/post/apple-airpods-iphone-accessory-or-the-next-big-thing"><u><strong>$12 billion in revenue</strong></u></a><strong> (which is nearly equal to the revenue of Spotify, Twitter, Snap, and Shopify combined), and its integrated Siri capabilities for announcing message notifications, replying to messages, volume control, and playing music have set the stage for voice-enabled smart hearables. In just the last month, Amazon dropped the new Echo Buds, and Google debuted the Pixel Buds A-Series — pushing the boundaries of potential for what the assistants in our ears can do. Wayfinding has emerged as a viable use case, illustrated by Amazon’s demo of Echo Buds </strong><a href="https://thespoon.tech/amazon-echo-buds-will-tell-where-to-find-tomatoes-in-whole-foods/"><u><strong>providing product location</strong></u></a><strong> in a Whole Foods, and Foursquare’s </strong><a href="https://foursquare.com/article/introducing-marsbot-for-airpods/"><u><strong>Marsbot for AirPods</strong></u></a><strong> offering “guided” audio tours. Additionally, companies are honing in on the fitness craze with fitness tracking features. With </strong><a href="https://research.voicebot.ai/report-list/hearables-consumer-adoption-report-2020/"><u><strong>43.7 million users</strong></u></a><strong> tapping into the voice assistants in their hearables, these devices are only going to expand their capabilities.</strong></p> --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rainagency/message