Real-Time Translation Ear Piece Breaks Down Language Barriers

There is nothing more remotely significant than one’s own native tongue. It’s what defines an individual from the cultural and communicative point of view. However, it is also the one thing that separates us because each language is unique and can be nearly impossible to interpret by speakers of foreign linguistics. The New York-based company, Wavery Labs, is developing a one of a kind earpiece focused on removing the language barrier by offering real-time translations connected from an app directly into your earpiece. Dubbed simply as, “The Pilot,” Waverly Labs plans to launch an Indiegogo campaign next week, either May 24th or 25th, where web browsers can contribute and pre-order their own pair.

The asking retail price will be from $249-$299 but early birds can snag one for as low as $129. These early supporters will be given 2 earpieces, 1 mobile charger and an additional app where they can download languages. Waverly Labs doesn’t plan on starting to ship out any earpieces until the end of this year but completing the distribution may extend well into next Spring. The founder and CEO, Andrew Ochoa, founded the organization in late 2013 and we know very little about his past employment background. The electrical engineer, Bill Goethals, has been diligently working with Ochoa in hopes of developing the world’s first translation earpiece.

It all started on May 15th when Waverly Labs created a short video clip with Ochoa displaying the device while conversing with a native French speaker. When people place this device into their ear, the product’s app will use a mixture of speech recognition, device translation along with voice synthesis to identify the spoken language and produce a translation. This translation is synced with the preferences of the user and so far has a fairly wide selection to choose from: English, Spanish, French, Italian etc. Additional languages such as East Asian, Hindi, Arabic, Slovak, African and even Hebrew plan to be available shortly after. The device’s app will be available in the Summer which grants users the opportunity to have a multi-language conversation over their smartphone on loudspeaker until there is no delay on the actual earpiece translation. Presently, there is only a couple of seconds of delay that they plan to improve.

Google Translate and Microsoft’s Skype Translator have been moving down a similar path by offering translations through mobile and desktop applications. Google Translate launched back in 2013 but wasn’t able to translate between multi-language speakers until 2 years later. Additionally, its Word Lens feature enables a user’s camera phone to snap objects written in foreign languages, such as a street sign, and immediately receive an on-screen translation. In 2014, the Skype Translator debuted on the scene allowing chat members of two different languages to understand each other by almost instantly translating speech into on-screen subtitles. However, the Pilot has a unique advantage with its cutting edge earpiece that softly speaks directly into the ears of listeners. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that mankind is definitely taking the steps necessary to knock down walls of language limitations

At the time of publishing, we hadn’t heard back from the company, if we obtain additional news, we will update the story as needed.

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