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Oct 21, 2024

We Staged a Debate to Test the Bluetooth Earrings Kamala Harris Didn’t Wear | WIRED

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If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

3/10

Just a few weeks ago, certain people in a particular corner of the internet decided they had cracked the reason Kamala Harris was doing so much better than Donald Trump in the presidential debate. Not that she was better prepared, nor that she was a better debater. No, she must be wearing a Bluetooth earpiece, carefully disguised as a pair of pearl earrings. Obviously.

As it turns out, earbuds like this really do exist. The Nova H1 audio earrings put forward by the conspiracy theorists do bear a decent resemblance to the earrings Kamala was wearing on the night. Of course hers were, in fact, from Tiffany & Co. and not from a Kickstarter campaign from 2021, but the concept piqued our interest all the same.

Could this so-called audio jewelry be the perfect crossover product for anyone who wants to make calls or listen to music, without a bulky pair of headphones or earbuds hanging out of their ear? We slapped them on our ears for a week to find out.

When I receive them, first impressions are promising. The Nova H1 arrive in what feels a bit like a jewelry box, a stylish detail we’re sure is no accident. Pull the inner packaging toward you, like a drawer, to slide the outer cover away, and the headphones appear against a rather striking yellow backdrop, the pearlescent square charging case adorned with Nova’s branding.

The case is plasticky though, and the earrings sit on an equally plasticky panel that rises up to present them to you as you open the lid. That’s a nice touch, but it all looks cheap and doesn’t feel in keeping with the premium look the Nova H1 is trying to present.

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The earrings themselves are not exactly subtle, either. The pearl, to my surprise, is actually a real freshwater pearl connected to your choice of clip-on or stud earring, but delicate it ain’t. Still, when clipped onto your ear they do at least look like jewelry—more costume jewelry than fine jewelry (our British readers may appreciate a Pat Butcher reference here), but they don’t look out of place. I have the silver ones to test, but there is also a gold option that will set you back a little more (more on that shortly.)

The clip-on version I’m testing offers exactly the right clamp force to be secure without causing any discomfort, which is indeed impressive. I could genuinely forget I was wearing them, meaning they can simply be worn as earrings, while being ready to jump into audio action whenever you need them.

Nova H1

Rating: 3/10

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That's helped by the fact they will go into a dormant mode when they don't detect any playback, and offer up to six hours in active use. That means you can pretty much get a full day's wear out of them, plus the case offers three full charges.

When you take them out of their case, they jump into pairing mode automatically. My phone finds them without issue, and within seconds they’re paired.

I immediately head to a playlist in Tidal and get to listening. It quickly becomes clear that audio quality is not a reason to buy these headphones—so much so that it’s almost impossible to critically evaluate the sound at all.

Bass is weak, and music has a somewhere-in-the-distance quality, almost as if someone has the radio on across the office. It’s a unique experience, not unpleasant by any stretch but not at all as engaging as the sound quality you’ll get from something like the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds.

However, it’s then that I see a few people in the office looking over at me. Perhaps they're admiring the audio earrings, I think. Then, a few more glances. Some smiles. That’s when I realize I’m very much on the receiving end of polite British code for “WE CAN HEAR YOUR MUSIC, LADY.” I apologize, of course, and ask them to let me know when they can no longer hear it—I have to turn it down by about half before they say it’s inaudible, even when they’re a few desks away. So quiet in fact, that the somewhere-in-the-distance experience becomes something of a “somewhere very far away, possibly inside of a cardboard box.” If I wasn’t sure you could critically evaluate the sound quality before, it’s almost impossible now.

It’s strange, because the Nova H1 claim to have patented Directional Sound technology, which states “only you can hear the sound going straight to your ears without anyone noticing.” From my experience, this is clearly not the case. In fact, it seems like sound is simply fired from the top of the pearl directly past your ear canal, and what goes in or what’s dispersed to those around you is down to more luck—and volume—than judgment.

Phone calls fare a little better, and while I am clear to my callers, they can still be heard by those around me when my volume is turned up high, so it’s far from discreet. The biggest issue is if you turn the volume down so you can’t be overheard, your caller’s voice is easily drowned out by any outside noise. And I mean any. Even the vague sound of a coffee machine as I approach our office kitchen was enough to render my phone conversation inaudible, so you can forget about these being of any use for conversations on a train or bus.

Nova H1

Rating: 3/10

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As for the possibility of these being used in the debate? Well, that’s already been thoroughly debunked. But we put the Nova H1s through a mock press conference to see if it might have worked. We had WIRED's UK managing editor Mike Dent surreptitiously feeding us lines to parrot, all while being quizzed by other members of the team. Even with the background noise being at a minimum, Mike often struggled to be heard through the H1s, leading to awkward pauses, misspoken answers, and frankly a look of complete incompetence rather than a commanding presence at the lectern. At one point we even had to stop the experiment altogether as the audio feed from Mike disappeared completely.

It’s a shame, because it’s not a bad concept at all. Open earbuds—that is, earbuds that sit outside the ear canal—are on something of a roll right now. Nothing just announced the Nothing Open, following in the footsteps of the previously mentioned Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, as well as options from JBL, Sony, Anker, and JLabs, to name a few. There is clearly a demand for an audio experience that isn’t all consuming. And if they look good in the process, then all the better.

Nova H1

Rating: 3/10

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But if your only options are to annoy your coworkers and fellow commuters or to not be able to hear what you’re listening to, or who you’re talking to, then that feels like a product that might need to go back to the drawing board. Because if you’re in an environment where you can have them as loud as you want them without bothering anyone, then why exactly would you be wanting headphones that look like earrings?

It is perhaps good news, then, that Icebach Sound Solutions, which acquired Nova’s patents and intellectual property when Nova went out of business in 2023, is working on developing an all- new version of the earrings. It showed very early samples at CES 2024 and is now on the lookout for a jewelry company to partner with to help manufacture the product at scale.

It needs investment, too, which the debate hype has certainly helped, of course. Currently you can buy a “special edition for presidential debates” on eBay (no different from the original earrings, you understand), for $1,898 in silver or $1,998 in gold—a significant premium from what they originally sold for. I'd admire their boldness if it didn't feel so cheeky.

Should you buy them, then—at this price, or any other? Absolutely not. But are they an intriguing concept for the future? I’d say so.

Hopefully Icebach Sound Solutions will get the partners it needs to bring us all the next version of the H1s. Hopefully they'll have much better audio. And hopefully by then, when the conspiracy theories have died down, Icebach won't feel it can get away with charging two grand for them.

Nova H1

Rating: 3/10

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