Augmented Reality is Here and it's Coming Through Your Ears

I recently purchased the Here One earbuds. It's since struck me that augmented reality as a utility has arrived, and that it will be coming in through our ears and not our eyes.

Here One promises to enhance your present reality for enduring periods of time, hands-free, wirelessly, invisibly, through small buds that sit comfortably in your ears. Through dials on the app, you can tune your environment to your liking. They are not noise-canceling; they are noise-enhancing.

I use Subway mode and then City mode, to enhance my active listening depending on real-world context; or use them in silence, to feel more relaxed in the moment. I now like the experience of my commute a lot less without them. Take them away and suddenly the bareness of reality feels sub-standard.

Unlike other recent augmented reality success stories, like Snapchat Lenses or Spectacles, which I've obsessed over for short bursts (when I’ve had time to  amuse myself), my Here One earbuds are an unobtrusive and unconscious companion to almost any experience.

They don't feel like magic but I think that's the point. Even with some inherent malfunctioning (which would normally be unforgivable in a pair of headphones), my repeat behavior indicates how augmented reality will become part of my daily life.

They have tweaked my default experience, and that is huge. 

It also dawned on me that our ears, and not our eyes, may be the first mass sensory input for augmented reality. The promise of AR is to enhance our perception, which amounts to far more than simply what we see. The unobtrusive form-factor of wireless buds keeps the eyes and the hands free. To me it represents what the first commercial always-on (or always-in) AR will be like.