Nothing has introduced the Ear 3A, a $99 pair of wireless earbuds that can record audio directly on the buds and send those recordings to Nothing’s mobile app, according to The Verge’s Andrew Liszewski.
The feature is the useful, slightly eyebrow-raising part of an otherwise familiar budget-earbud launch. Nothing is selling the Ear 3A through its own online store starting today, and the company is keeping the price at $99, the same launch price as the earlier Nothing Ear (a), according to The Verge.
Nothing is also keeping this release under its main brand rather than routing it through CMF, its lower-cost sub-brand. That positioning is mildly odd, since the Ear 3A is explicitly a cheaper product, but the company appears to be using the main Nothing line for this one.
How the recording works
The Ear 3A adds 32MB of storage to the earbuds themselves. Yes, megabytes. The point is not to turn the buds into a tiny iPod; it is to give them enough local memory to capture short recordings before syncing them elsewhere.
According to The Verge, users can pinch both earbuds to start a feature Nothing calls Audio Snapshot. That mode records the audio currently playing and also keeps a short bit of preroll, so the clip can include material from just before the user triggered it.
The Verge also reports that the earbuds can record calls and that recordings sync to Nothing’s mobile app. The available details describe the microphones as being on the earbuds, rather than in the case.
That differs from Nothing’s Ear 3, which The Verge says used upgraded microphones in its wireless charging case for phone calls, voice notes, and memos saved through Nothing’s app. The Ear 3A case is less ambitious: it stores and charges the earbuds.
Battery life and colors
Nothing says the charging case extends playback from up to 10 hours on the earbuds to as much as 42 hours total. With active noise cancellation turned on, total playback is rated at up to 25 hours, according to The Verge.
The Ear 3A comes in pink, black, white, and yellow. The pink option is new for this model, while the other colors match Nothing’s usual taste for transparent-ish gadget theater and bright accent choices.
The unresolved bit is the recording feature’s social contract. The facts reported so far are mechanical: pinch the buds, capture audio, sync it to the app. Nothing’s actual handling of call-recording prompts, consent notices, or platform restrictions was not detailed in The Verge’s report.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
