The recent news of German start-up Bragi leaving the consumer hardware business -- which likely meant an end to its ambitious true wireless earbuds, the Dash -- was unfortunate. I admired the company's ambitious vision of trying to make the Dash more than just earbuds for music listening; Bragi wanted to turn them into full-fledged assistants that can offer real-time translations of different languages.
The Bragi Dash has likely reached the end of the line as a consumer product, without fully realizing its digital translator dream, but a Shenzhen-based start-up named Timekettle has created its own device that strives for that same goal. Named the WT2, the earphones are true wireless earpieces that are meant to be worn by two people who do not share a common language.
There are no shortage of apps that can translate spoken words into another language -- including Google's excellent Translate app -- but where the WT2 stand out is each earpiece can automatically identify and interpret a specific language in real time, without getting confused by other languages or sounds, and without needing the user to prompt the listening/translation process with, for example, a button tap.
Here's how it works: the owner of the WT2 first has to set the two languages being used in the companion app (available for both iOS and Android). After that, each person simply wears the earpiece and speaks in their own language. The other party will hear a translated version through their earpiece.
The video demo below shows the WT2 in action, as it was able to interpret a bilingual conversation between my girlfriend and I, with me speaking Cantonese and she Spanish.
The translator picked up our words automatically without needing prompting. Accuracy was mostly on point, though there were slight mistakes in the Cantonese to Spanish translation.
The fact that the WT2 can pick up a language as colloquial as Cantonese is impressive; when I spoke Mandarin -- which is more formal and rigid compared to Cantonese -- the translator was able to translate into English with much greater accuracy. I tried an English to Japanese conversation with a friend which went smoothly too.
The WT2 currently can handle two-way interpretation of 36 languages, including Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese, as well as the aforementioned languages and dozens more. You will need internet connection for the translation to work, however.
Of course, giving a complete stranger an earbud to wear is not always an acceptable option, so the WT2 can translate the traditional way through the app; the interpreted text are displayed in text form and spoken through the phone's speakers. At least one earpiece will still need to be pulled out to use as a mic, however.
The included charging case that houses the earpieces is toppped up via Micro-USB and it can recharge the earpieces three times over. Each charge lasts for 12 hours, according to the company, though I haven't come close to pushing the battery to its limits yet. I also can't imagine you'd ever need to use these for 12 hours straight.
At $210, they are a bit pricey considering they only do one thing right now -- I would have liked for these to be able to act as a standalone earbud that can play music over bluetooth too -- but at least it does the one thing well. And as cool as being able to wear these in the ear and have real-time conversations may be, most would probably still be better off just opening up Google Translate and dictating to the phone in real-world scenarios.
Still, Timekettle is ambitious with what it's trying to do here -- just like Bragi did. That's worth applauding in itself.
