Timekettle introduces the W4 AI Interpreter Earbuds, built around a “shared-earbud” workflow for two-way, face-to-face translation. Two people each wear one earbud, while the phone app assigns languages and routes audio so each side hears the right translation stream. Voice pickup combines a bone-voiceprint (bone-conduction vibration) sensor with microphones to improve speech capture in loud places. https://www.timekettle.co/products/w4-ai-interpreter-earbuds
In the demo, the interviewer speaks Danish while Ela speaks Chinese, with left/right earbuds mapped to the two participants so the channels don’t get mixed. The intent is to avoid the stop-start feel of typical translator apps: you talk normally, and the system plays back the translated audio fast enough to keep eye contact and cadence. This clip was filmed at CES Las Vegas 2026, which is a useful stress test because booth floors are packed with competing voices and PA noise.
On the spec side, Timekettle highlights ~0.2 s response time, “self-correcting” context-aware translation, and Babel OS 2.0 running on the companion app. Marketing claims include operation in environments up to roughly 100 dB and up to 98% translation accuracy, which in practice will vary by language pair, speaking style, and domain vocabulary. Language coverage is described as about 42–43 languages with roughly 95–96 accents, aimed at real conversational flow.
The company says it has been building translation earbuds for around 10 years, and the interview corrects the scale to about 150k users rather than “millions.” Pricing mentioned for W4 is $349, positioning it for travel, expo meetings, and quick multilingual coordination where hands-free audio separation beats passing a phone back and forth, today.
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