Samsungs new Galaxy Buds 4 are proof that camera-equipped earbuds is the next frontier

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Premium earbuds already sound great and cancel noise well. It’s time for something new.
• Integrated cameras are the next step for innovation in this product category.
• Navigation, live translation, and fitness are the top applications.

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Earbuds are becoming boring. The technology has matured enough to the point that essentially all premium earbuds have fantastic audio quality and noise cancellation. Those two features on their own are not selling points.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Proreinforce this idea. This generation’s “novel” feature is the option to use eartips or not, while including incremental updates to the microphone, noise cancellation, and audio performance. In short, they’re all things we’ve seen before.

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Apple’sAirPods Pro 3 were a small taste at what could be, as the company successfully incorporated heart rate sensors (which we’ve also seen before) in a way that seamlessly bridged the gap between you, your earbuds, phone, and smartwatch.

But Samsung’s latest release proves that we’re ready for what’s next: cameras. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple is already working on AirPods with an integrated IR camera. Your smart glasses do it; why can’t your earbuds?

The foundation already exists

Your earbuds are smarter than you think; they have the foundation to integrate cameras, including gyroscopes for 360-degree spatial awareness, optical sensors for wear detection, and advanced AI-powered noise reduction and processing algorithms.

All of these technologies enable your earbuds to accept or decline a call with a nod or shake, turn on transparency mode when you’re speaking to someone, capture audio for translation services, understand where you’re standing and how your head is positioned, and distinguish between human voices and extraneous background noise.

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If smart glasses lend an audio component to your eyesight, then camera-enabled earbuds would lend a visual component to your auditory experience, using sight to further integrate earbuds into your daily life. Here’s how.

Navigation

Plenty of people use auditory directions for hands-free navigation while driving, biking, or in other situations where a heads-down approach isn’t ideal. Instead of simply regurgitating “turn left on 3rd Street,” cameras in your earbuds could identify easily recognizable landmarks and location markers.

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For cyclists and pedestrians, this implementation could be safer, and a binaural or spatial audio component could deliver a left-turn directive to your left ear to help you understand directions. In my future utopia, this kind of navigation assistance could be especially useful indoors, such as large corporate offices, shopping centers, or university campuses.

Live translation

Several earbuds feature live translation services that capture spoken words and send them to your phone for translation. Imagine combining live translation, conversation awareness (pausing music and engaging transparency mode when a voice is detected), background noise reduction, directional microphone, and cameras.

Also: Intrigued by Live Translation? You may not have to buy new AirPods to access it

This combination would make live translation seamless within spontaneous conversation, with AI detecting the start of a conversation, the camera detecting which person you’re facing, directional microphones focusing only on that person, and noise reduction algorithms dampening background noise. This technology all exists, it just needs to be developed into one product.

Fitness

Apple demonstrated that it’s possible to integrate heart-rate sensors into a pair of earbuds while using motion sensors and accelerometers to track heart rate, distance, calories burned, and steps. By adding a visual layer, cameras could identify improper form and imbalances, especially regarding your head and positioning.

Also: AirPods Pro 3 vs. Powerbeats Pro 2: I tested both heart rate-tracking earbuds, and the winner is not so obvious

Instead of taking your phone and setting up a tripod, imagine turning to your side in the gym mirror to capture aspects of your form you can’t see when facing forward, and correcting them. For outdoor sports, cameras could help alert you to hazards, such as an approaching person or car.

Challenges

The main challenge is that earbuds are incredibly small, and we’d like to keep them that way. Although many earbuds already have most of the necessary hardware to perform these tasks, integrating a camera would raise privacy, power, and heat-dissipation concerns.

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Then of course, there’s the cost. Adding cameras to earbuds will inevitably raise the price, but by how much exactly depends on the technology. Whether or not consumers are willing to pay for these features depend on their execution; if the features are extensive, useful, and practical, I believe they will.

All of these challenges already exist for smart glasses makers, so again I ask: if your smart glasses can do it, why can’t your earbuds?