A sensor-packed set of performance tracking wireless earphones has become one of the most funded Kickstarter projects in history, with six days to go.
The Dash, as the product is known, has smashed its target of $260,000 (£157,000) to raise more than $3 million (£1.85m). It consists of a pair of discrete and completely wireless stereo earphones that will play music via Bluetooth or via an embedded 4GB music player.
The Dash will not only play music wirelessly but will track your movements -- distance, number of steps and speed -- as well as your vitals such as heart rate, oxygen saturation and energy spent. It can do the vast majority of these things without a connected smarphone, thanks to a startling array of technology that has been crammed into the ear pieces: a tiny ARM processor, three-axis accelerometer, analogue-to-digital converter, digital signal processor, battery, thermometer, and ear-bone vibration speaker-microphone. The Dash doubles as a Bluetooth headset and noise isolating earphones and it's all waterproof.
The Dash is the brainchild of Munich-based Nikolaj Hviid, former head of design at audio company Harman. He has teamed up with the former head of design from AKG, Josef Schneider, designer Arne Loermann and software developer Toby Martin to form company BRAGI, which develops The Dash.
Hviid was inspired to develop the product after going for a run two years ago. "After about a kilometre my knees hurt and my lungs were torn apart," he told Wired.co.uk. He then spoke to an athlete friend of his who gave him some tips on his running and breathing technique. "I then went out and ran five kilometres without a problem."
With The Dash, he wanted to incorporate this sort of performance advice with high-end audio capabilities. "I wanted to take all of the stuff away -- the phone, the watch -- and make something as pure as possible. Just two ear plugs to entertain me, listen to me and take care of me," he explains.
BRAGI currently has 18 people working on The Dash with around seven months' work to be done before the product is ready. "We have the mechanical work almost done, we are almost done with the acoustics, we have all of the components needed to make this work on one board and we have simulated that it goes into the size we want to make it. So we are confident we can make it."
He tells Wired.co.uk that the Kickstarter success has been both "humbling" and "mind-boggling". The attention the project has attracted has helped the team get support from suppliers, who don't tend to take small players seriously regardless of their professional pedigree. "Even with a good reputation, if the business is small the attention is small. If you are only going to sell 500 of something, no chip supplier will give you an application engineer. But if you have shown you can be successful in the market and will be capable of delivering the product, they will," Hviid explains. Now suppliers are fighting over themselves to be involved in the project, and Hviid says he's fielding lots of calls from venture capitalists.
The most challenging part of the project so far has been fitting so much functionality into the tiny space. Achieving this is part of the reason why both of BRAGI's mechanical engineers -- who each have more than 30 years of experience in the industry -- call the project the "masterpiece" of their working careers. "It's actually not really a set of earphones, but a microcomputer that fits in the ear with a host of sensors. The computer is similar to your laptop 15 years ago. It's actually quite a powerful device," Hviid says. The three-axis accelerometer can identify patterns of activity -- so it will know if you are walking, running, cycling or turning. It can tell how long your steps are and how far and fast you are going.
Battery life presents a major challenge, but Hviid says the software developers on the project are "counting electrons" in order to get as much life out of the product. If all goes to plan, The Dash should provide at least three hours of battery life when all sensors are in use and up to four hours if just playing music.
The earphones are recharged via a special carrying case which contains a battery pack that is charged via USB.
The software still needs to be finished, despite being in the works for more than a year. "Then we need to do refinement to make sure the user experience is as delightful as we want it to be. Even though we might have done 90 percent of the coding, that's the most tricky part."
The aim is to release the developer prototype (around 400 units) in July this year, so that third parties can start work on making apps that are Dash-compatible. Then the first 1,000 units will be available in October before mass production starts in November with the next 8,000 units.
Hviid says that Kickstarter feedback has suggested applications that the team would have never considered, such as using The Dash for the acoustic treatment of tinnitus.
The Dash, in Hviid's mind, is about helping people to do things they have forgotten to do (in terms of physical performance) rather than distracting people from the drudgery of exercise. "So much of what we have invented in the last few years is about distracting us rather than engaging us with our surroundings," he says. "My intention is to take the distracting part away and push the enabling side."
The example he gives is the fact that he used to swim a lot when he was a teenager and knew exactly when he could push himself more and when he needed to ease off. "I don't know any more. But I have a few friends who are professional athletes who know exactly what to do -- they know their pulses without having anything to measure it." The Dash should be able to provide that awareness, like a sports coach that sits in the wearer's ear.
Ultimately, Hviid hopes that The Dash can move beyond being a sports performance aid and into virtual assistant territory -- the sort of space that smartglasses operate in. In the future, a Danish person might be able to wear The Dash earphones and speak in Danish to a Chinese friend while both people get realtime audio translation. But Hviid doesn't want The Dash to be like Google Glass; he thinks it's "too distracting". "It's not enabling at all and it's kind of creepy. You don't know what wearers are looking at." "Maybe I'm being arrogant but I do think I have the better solution. It's based upon the way we've lived all our lives."
You can still pre-order The Dash on Kickstarter for $179 (£108).
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
