The new Nothing Ear (1) earbuds are funky — and as cool — as hell

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Nothing Ear 1 In Ear
Nothing Ear 1 In Ear (Image credit: Nothing)

What you need to know

  • Nothing has announced its first product — the Ear (1) earbuds.
  • The new earbuds will sell for $99 and feature ANC and more.

Nothing, the company from former OnePlus founder Carl Pei, has its first product. The Nothing Ear (1) have been confirmed today and they're unlike anything you've seen before. The in-ear true wireless earbuds look pretty stunning, and they have the features to go with the looks.

Those features begin with support for Bluetooth 5.2 and IPX4 water resistance, but the use of active noise cancelation (ANC) is also a biggie. That's made possible via three microphones built into each earbud and ANC can be configured in three states depending on how loud your environment might be. These things are obvious AirPods Pro competitors, but they're still better suited to use with Android devices thanks to a new fast-pair feature. Charging is handled via a Qi-compatible charging case and a USB-C port.

Nothing Ear 1 In Case

Nothing Ear 1 In Case (Image credit: Nothing)

Nothing promises up to 57 hours of battery life with ANC off and that increases to 34 hours when you take the battery case into consideration. Controlling things like volume and whatnot is done via on-bud gesture controls.

Undoubtedly, one of the main features here is just the way these things look. They most definitely won't be for everyone, but I'm already smitten with the transparent look. The $99 asking price is one thing people will universally enjoy, making the Ear (1) around $150 cheaper than Apple's finest. That being said, you can usually find a good AirPods Pro deal if you know where to look.

The new Nothing Ear (1) will be available from August 17 in as many as 45 different countries, including the United States.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.