Interesting product. Earbuds that provide real-time translation of 40 different languages with a 3-5 second delay. After all my years in corporate America sitting through meetings in foreign countries wearing large headphones or in video meetings where two translators were in the room providing translation in one direction each -- it is interesting to see a product like this out on the market. I wonder how well it works. Timekettle’s new earbuds offer real-time translation on calls https://finance.yahoo.com/news/timekettle-earbuds-offer-real-time-010000284.html Timekettle unveiled its latest earbuds, the W4 Pro, this week at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The product aims to up the ante on the startup’s focus by bringing real-time two-way translation to phone and video calls. The earbuds will automatically begin translating calls in 40 different languages, without any input from the user. Predictably, there is some latency: around three to five seconds following speech. Timekettle notes: “The newly launched feature allows two-way translations to facilitate effortless cross-lingual conversations through any telecommunication application or traditional phone system. It provides bidirectional synchronous translations without disrupting the original voice quality." Translated speech will, however, come through louder than the original audio. In addition to those translations, the headphones use onboard AI to provide a summary of the conversation’s contents. The W4 Pro can also be used in the same manner as earlier Timekettle headphones: by sharing an earbud with another person for face-to-face translations. The headphones are powered by the company’s newly announced Babel OS, “which delivers lightning-quick transitions with solutions that can anticipate what is being said, adapt to customizable lexicons, and translate with real human emotion and tonality,” per Timekettle. The operating system is coming to older models, as well. The W4 Pro earbuds go up for sale Sunday, priced at $449. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/05/timekettles-new-earbuds-offer-real-time-translation-on-calls/
Aren't there phone apps already for this? Like SayHi, Papago, DeepL. The only difference is the earbud. Couldn't we use those via Bluetooth?