No matter how much you spend on your earphones, they still feel a little uncomfortable to the ear when you pop them in. And we have all more or less learned to settle with this issue. But a San Diego based firm is now offering customized earphones designed solely for your ears. So that alienated feeling your earphones give you every single time won’t have to be a problem anymore.
These customized earphones known as “OwnPhones” have specially designed buds that are specific to the user’s ear shape and size. To make things even more convenient, OwnPhones come in wireless form and use Bluetooth to connect to your phone or other music players that you might be using. Oh and did we mention? You can get them in a variety of colors, materials and styles to suit your needs.
Itamar Jobani, the founder of the company claims about more than 10,000 combinations of OwnPhones being possible.
How the process works is simple. All you have to do is take a photo of your ear and upload it to a smartphone app. A specially designed software then analyzes the dimensions of your outer ear as well the visible portion of your inner ear and plots its size, curves and shape. These scans are then used to create a virtual model, followed by 3D printing of earphone to fit the specified dimensions comfortably.
Another feature that OwnPhones have to offer is that they can partially block out the environmental noise, owing to the fact that the bud is designed to fit perfectly into your ear. However, to completely cancel out all noise, OwnPhones use what is called ‘Soundscaping’. This feature can effectively lower environmental noise.
OwnPhones also allows you to let specific sounds penetrate the earphones e.g. an alarm or a friend’s voice, using this app. The company refers to this as the ‘Real World Notifications.’
Certain models of OwnPhones also come with with LED lights to indicate if the user is busy, or free to engage.
OwnPhones are not up for sale yet but you can pre-order them from Kickstarter for $149 (£88), but the retail price is expected to go up to $299 (£177) when they begin selling in March. This includes a Smart Fit (which feature the notifications and LED lights), the Designer fit and the Jewellery Collection.