Currently, most headphones are wireless, easily visible and mostly used for listening to music and making phone calls. In the far away future (30+ years) I believe them to change into devices that we use for direct brain-to-brain and brain-to-machine communication that allow us to send and receive information such as images or sound without any other input devices. The way towards this future will progress in several periods [1]:
- Now (next twelve months)
- Near-term (one to five years)
- Mid-range (five to ten years)
- Long-range (ten to twenty years)
- Far-range (twenty to thirty years)
- Distant (more than thirty years)
In this report, I have described how I imagine this future to unfold.
Click here to download The future of headphones report
Notes
[1] Time zones based on Amy Webb
Note that I am using headphones, earphones and, hearables (smart headphones, a category of wearables) interchangeably.
Featured Image from Harpal Singh: