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Wearhaus 'social' earbuds share music with your gym buddies
Wearhaus' Arc social headphones are clever: you can share a new song with your friends without asking them to plug in or borrow your gear. However, not everyone can use over-ear cans -- you aren't about to bring the Arc on a run just to broadcast a few tunes. Thankfully, you don't have to. Wearhaus is crowdfunding the Beam, which crams that social experience into a set of fitness-friendly earbuds. They still include Bluetooth-based music sharing (including to Arc owners) and color-changing light rings -- they're just much smaller and sweat-resistant. If you want to share tracks with a gym buddy or just don't want to be quite so conspicuous at a silent disco, this is your better option.
Wearhaus' 'social' headphones are now on sale
Wearhaus isn't slinging just any old pair of fancy headphones, but instead what it's calling a social listening experience. Put simply, it makes cans that let you share whatever track you're playing with whoever's in your general vicinity. Now, after a few years in development, the Wearhaus Arc headphones are now available for everyone to buy. If you want to share your music with your closest friends but are considerate enough not to turn on your smartphone speaker while in public, then you (and them) can grab a set on Wearhaus' website for $199.
Wearhaus Arc: Is the world ready for 'social headphones'?
Almost exactly a year ago, I received an email about "the world's first social headphones." The main feature of the Wearhaus Arc was their ability to wirelessly connect with other Arcs nearby, letting users broadcast (or listen in to) each other's tunes. Owners of the Arc would be able to create impromptu silent discos, or hyper-local radio stations with just one media player. At a romantic level, I liked the idea. I imagined all the conversations they could start, or connections they might spark, so I wrote about them, suggesting the technology might be better as a "feature" that other brands could license. Despite my reservations, Wearhaus went on to run not one, but two successful rounds of crowdfunding for its bespoke headphones. That product is finally here, and about to go on sale. I've at last had a chance to try it. Has it changed my mind?
Bringing it to Beats: can these 'social' headphones compete?
Music is a social experience. Headphones -- by their very nature -- are not. Except the team behind the Wearhaus Arc you see above never got that memo. If you think these look familiar, that's because I wrote Wearhaus an open letter back in May. I received the press release about the Arc headphones (and its bold idea to unite friends and strangers through proximity music sharing) and thought it sounded like a good idea. In a blue-sky world at least. Ultimately, I was worried it would be limited by one thing -- the buying public's desire (need?) for individuality. But what do I know. Wearhaus broke another convention and hosted (successfully) its own crowdfunding campaign. Those orders will ship early next year (pencilled in for January). Wearhaus then dropped a prototype in my lap to really convince me they weren't messing about, just as the Arc launches on Kickstarter proper. Could these social headphones really be more than just wireless headsets with a party trick? The evidence for that is certainly mounting.
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Wearhaus: If you love your social headphones, set them free
Wearhaus wants to crowdfund its dream, its vision: to create a brand of social headphones that let you share music with other wearers nearby. Essentially, it wants to make the world a silent disco, a world where people can choose to share music between Wearhaus headphones directly, without wires, perhaps creating meaningful interactions, friendships and more. As you can imagine, at Engadget we receive countless emails pitching crowdfunding campaigns on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Some ideas are great, but, equally, most are lousy. Much more common are those ideas that are merit-worthy, if a little optimistic about the magnitude of the problem they are solving. Wearhaus' idea is definitely not lousy. It's way above merit-worthy, but is it overly optimistic? I'd love to say it wasn't.
