I’ve had my eye on the Nothing Ear A earbuds since they first leaked, and they’re finally official. Our Nothing Ear A review and Nothing Ear review will tell you all you need to know about each of Nothing’s 2024 earphones.
I already know I’ll get the yellow Ear A model the first chance I get, and it’s purely because of that color option. I say that as a first-gen Nothing Ear user who has been pretty happy with the overall experience.
The color option is a trivial reason to pick a pair of earbuds, I know. The same goes for the transparent design that Nothing continues to promote. But there are also some genuine reasons to be interested in the Nothing Ear earbuds, including some brand-new functionality the British startup announced.
Nothing Ear and Ear A will support a gesture that lets you talk to ChatGPT. There is a pretty big caveat, however: You also have to buy one of Nothing’s smartphones for the ChatGPT shortcut to work.
ChatGPT can already support voice prompts. Also, ChatGPT can respond in kind and read aloud any previous response. I already explained that these features are very convenient on mobile devices, where typing longer prompts isn’t ideal. But you’d still have to go to the ChatGPT app to start talking with the chatbot.
Nothing’s solution fixes that problem, making ChatGPT interactions on phones even easier. According to the company, the Ear earbuds will support a pinch-to-speak shortcut for ChatGPT.
The announcement confirms that both the Ear and Ear A models will support the feature. But it only works if you have a Nothing phone and ChatGPT is installed.
Nothing has only released three phones to date, and the Nothing Phone 2 is the only flagship of the three. This will be the first handset to support ChatGPT integration for the earbuds, the company told The Verge. The Phone 1 and the newly released Phone 2A will follow.
This isn’t Nothing’s first move related to generative AI. When it launched the Nothing Phone 2A in early March, Nothing offered some buyers a free year of access to Perplexity Pro, an AI online search app available on iPhone and Android.
Adding ChatGPT support to the Ear products is certainly a smart play, considering the growing interest in generative AI products. Not all earphones can invoke a generative AI product.
Back to Nothing’s Thursday announcements, the company also teased that deeper ChatGPT integration in Nothing phones is coming, as it’ll embed “system-level” entry points for OpenAI’s genAI product:
Nothing will also improve the Nothing smartphone user experience in Nothing OS by embedding system-level entry points to ChatGPT, including screenshot sharing and Nothing-styled widgets.
These features should be available at a later date, however.