I’d pick these over those ugly AirPods stems any day…
Yes, this is still a design and tech website. No, those aren’t average earrings. Sure, they look like pearl-studded jewelry, but the NOVA H1 are a rather new category of audio wearables designed to turn tech into fashion accessories. Designed to be worn exactly like a pair of earrings, the NOVA H1 are TWS earbuds that connect to your phone and play music, podcasts, and other audio right into your ear. The ‘audio earrings’ use NOVA’s patented Direction Sound technology to channel audio right into your ear without blocking your hearing. The open-ear design means you can hear audio from the NOVA H1 as well as from the world around you, giving you natural transparency and situational awareness of your surroundings. That being said, they make for a wonderful pair of earrings too!
Designer: NOVA
Available in actual gold and silver variants, and studded with real freshwater pearls, the NOVA H1 are just the perfectly quintessential pair of pearl earrings. They have a classic appeal and can be worn either on your earlobes or placed within any other piercing on your ear. Don’t have piercings? The earrings come in clip-on variants too, allowing pretty much anyone to wear them. However, as aesthetic as the NOVA H1 look, its true magic lies underneath its surface.
Hiding cleverly behind its jewelry avatar is a pair of audio drivers, designed to turn the earings into hearables (hear + wearables). Powered by Bluetooth 5.2, the NOVA H1 connects to your phone like any TWS earbuds, and delivers audio directly into your ear canal using NOVA’s proprietary audio beam-forming technology. The soundwaves are channeled directly into your ear without leaking out, creating a private hearing experience for the wearer. Sure, it doesn’t compare to an actual TWS earbud that sits sealed within your ear, but the makers claim to have reduced the audio leakage to an absolute minimum.
The NOVA H1 work just like your pair of TWS earbuds, allowing you to listen to music and podcasts, answer or reject calls, or summon your phone’s voice assistant. A touch panel on the back of the earrings registers touch inputs, letting you control your listening experience or interact with your phone’s voice AI.
Given that earrings are often worn for longer time-frames than TWS Earbuds, the NOVA H1 earrings weigh a mere 7 grams each, letting you wear them for hours without feeling their weight on your ears. The earrings have a battery capacity of 3.5 to 4.5 hours, extendable to 18 hours when used with the rather flashy-looking charging case that comes with your earrings. Depending on whether you go for the silver or gold variants, the NOVA H1 cost between €595 ($633) and €695 ($740).
