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Art et designTranscription
00:00All right, let's talk about the Nothing Ear 1. These are a set of wireless earbuds that
00:08seem heavily hyped right now on the market, like there was a drop of them on StockX,
00:14Youtubers talking about it, it's on publications, it's in the news, it's like the definition
00:18of a hyped product. Now, the company behind it, Nothing, was started by Carl Pei, he's
00:23the guy that helped co-found OnePlus, it's also a company that's backed by Casey Neistat,
00:28it's also co-developed by Teenage Engineering, they make some of the best synths in the
00:32entire genre of portable synths, and the hardware is special. They do, in my opinion, something
00:41that other hardware synths don't do, it's special. So when I heard that they were involved
00:47in Ear 1, I was like, I'm curious, my interest is piqued. However, there's a part of me that's
00:54concerned that this is just a standard pair of earphones being hyped up by social media,
00:59right? Because it can kind of look like that. Good marketing can lead to this kind of stuff.
01:05So I kind of, I went in on it, I thought, I needed to learn more. So the first thing
01:10I wanted to know was, why? Why would Carl go from smartphones to wireless earbuds? So
01:16I dug around, and I found this nugget of information. Apple sells a lot of AirPods, it was estimated
01:22in 2020 that they sold somewhere between 10 to maybe $20 billion worth of AirPods.
01:28If you look at those numbers and you compare them to the companies around there, that's
01:32a lot. And keep in mind, this is just AirPods, an accessory, right? That lineup of accessories
01:38generates a lot of money for Apple, even with those conservative estimates. So Apple clearly
01:43knew what they were doing when they removed the headphone jack in 2016. But enter 2021,
01:49Alpay enters this seemingly saturated industry of wireless earphones with Ear One. They're
01:57in here, I just, I can't unbox it, I'm shooting this before the embargo, okay? So the question
02:04is like, why, right? Why enter that market? Well, for one, if you do it right, you could
02:09disrupt that market. There's a lot of money in that pie, okay? And Carl, he likes to disrupt,
02:16and he's actually pretty good at it. So I think Carl did two things with Ear One to
02:22differentiate his product from everything else. Number one, price. So these come in
02:27at $99. It's not the cheapest thing out there, there's definitely cheaper wireless earbuds
02:31out there, but we'll talk about it in a second. If you look at the feature set, it's actually
02:35very well-priced. Secondly though, aesthetics. Ear Ones look different. They're made with
02:40a clear transparent plastic, so you can see the innards. And when you look in there, everything
02:44that you're seeing seemingly has a functional reason for it to be there. Like all the components,
02:48all the materials, they all have a purpose. They're not just sticking stuff in there for
02:51it to look a certain way. Now in one sense, you could argue that they kind of look like
02:57AirPods, like in terms of the shape, but in terms of the color, just because of the transparency,
03:01they look completely different. Like if you think about you walking on the street, or
03:05you're just, you know, you're watching the Olympics, and you're seeing people with those
03:08white stemmed earbuds, they just look like AirPods, because that's the original wireless
03:15AirPod from Apple, and anything that's white, like half of these things are white here,
03:19they just look like AirPods. This thing, you see it being worn, it's clearly not an AirPod.
03:27It's clearly, if you know anything about this company, it's clearly the Ear One. And then
03:31the carrying case is also transparent. It has USB-C charging, it has wireless charging
03:35capabilities, but the big feature is, again, it's aesthetic. Now, notice that I did not
03:40talk about audio quality, because realistically, the sound is almost irrelevant to the conversation
03:48of how these things will sell. Assuming they don't sound like complete trash. There's no
03:51way they do, right? Not with teenage engineering behind it, and not with Carl behind it. There's
03:56no way that they're putting out a product that sounds terrible. But the sound quality
03:59is actually not that important in terms of the marketing, because the differentiating
04:05features between any of these things is how they look and the price. That stuff is way
04:10more important to the average consumer than the nuances of the actual sound profile. But
04:15I'm not going to assume that they sound good. We'll find out in a day or two.
04:20So this is the spec list, and there's a bunch of cool stuff in here, but the one feature
04:23that jumps out to me is the weight. These come in at 4.7 grams per earbud, and that's
04:29pretty light in this product category. But I bring it up for a couple of reasons. Number
04:33one is comfort, right? The lighter an earbud is, when it comes to a wireless earbud like
04:38this, the more comfortable it's going to be for an extended period of time, if you're
04:41wearing it for a long time. But the other thing is battery life. So it's this juggling
04:46act, this balancing act of how heavy do you make the device, and also how much battery
04:52do you pack in the thing, right? And I think 4.7 grams with a decent battery life while
04:57it's running active noise cancellation, I like that. I think a lot of companies go
05:00the opposite direction, where they go for something heavier, but the battery lasts a
05:03lot longer. But personally, and this is just a personal preference, I like my stuff lighter,
05:07but with shorter battery life as a consequence.
05:11And the last thing I want to touch on is that price. So the price of this product at $99,
05:16that's why this whole thing even matters to me personally. Because if it was $150 or $200,
05:21then no one would care, right? Because then you can get similar stuff to this, and then
05:26the only differentiating factor is the aesthetic, right? But because it's $100, you're looking
05:33at a product that is priced noticeably cheaper than almost all of the big name competitors
05:39out there. Now, people are going to draw comparisons to this and be like, well, you can get product
05:43X or product Y for $100, but they don't have a feature set like this. So the pricing is
05:47kind of special. And in terms of the marketing, it feels a little thick. I personally don't
05:51like heavily marketed stuff. I'm really averse to heavily marketed things, and I can kind
05:58of smell and taste. It's got that hot sauce, that marketing hot sauce that companies like
06:04to do. But in their defense, because it's a new brand, new product, I feel like it's
06:09necessary. In this day and age, if you don't do this kind of stuff, especially when you
06:12have a good price point and you potentially have a good product, I feel like I'll give
06:17it a pass in terms of its marketing. But I do still have a couple of concerns with
06:22this product. Number one, because it's a clear, transparent plastic, it's going to scratch.
06:27There's no way that you can keep it looking pristine and as clean as the photos, like
06:32even a week after use. It's going to be scratchy. Just assume that it's going to get scuffed
06:36and that's just how the product will look. But the other thing, and this is kind of a
06:40more personal thing, this is a product that it can't just be like the only product that
06:47nothing makes, right? They can't just be in the business of making earphones and that's
06:51it. Just make one product and they're out. No way. They're doing this for the long haul,
06:55right? Whatever they come up with the future, I'm interested to see what they do. But what
06:58I don't want to see is like nothing ear five, you know, 2025 and it's $500 and it's like,
07:07you know, the pro model and it's done in partnership with Dolby audio. That would suck because
07:11that's not what, that's so not what I want, but at $99 first product, good feature set.
07:19I want to crack this thing open. Thanks for watching this. Hope you enjoyed it. Thumbs
07:22if you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time.