A New York start-up is selling earphones that can translate live speech in real time from five different languages.
Waverly Labs said its $250 (£205) Pilot smart earpieces will start shipping to those who pre-ordered late this summer, after a successful crowdfunding campaign.
The Bluetooth-enabled wearable takes speech from one person wearing an earpiece, and relays the translated version straight into the other wearer’s ear with only a couple of seconds’ delay.
There is also an accompanying app that can translate even more written languages. At the moment, the speech translation part is limited to English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, but from this autumn, 10 more will be available to buy.
At the moment, the device only works if whoever you want to speak to also has an earpiece, but the company said it is working on one that will be able to translate everything around you.
You’ll also need an internet connection for the translation to work.
When not translating they can act as normal noise cancelling wireless headphones that can be used to listen to music.
In a promotional video, CEO Andrew Ochoa said he came up with the idea after meeting a French woman on holiday and struggling to overcome the language barrier.
“Even when we tried to find a solution like using some translation app to communicate it was horrible” he said.
Now holiday romances have technology on their side.
