Subtle just launched a second pair of wireless earbuds. These earbuds make conversations easy to follow when on a call, and transcribe notes with precision. These earbuds are being offered for $199. They deliver on that iOS/Mac integration with a year-long membership included for free, which puts Subtle in serious competition for attractive consumer tech products.
Tyler Chen, the company’s co-founder and CEO, underscored that these earbuds are capable of much more than providing crisp audio. They act as multifunctional devices, with dictation, AI chat, and voice notes packed into one easy-to-use interface. Subtle wants to put you in control, allowing you to dictate using these earbuds inside any kind of app.
Subtle has previously raised $2 million in funding. This is evident in their collaborations with consumer electronics companies including Qualcomm and Nothing to bring their high-end noise isolation models to market. This technology allows the earbuds to capture text for voice notes even when the speaker is whispering, ensuring that users can communicate effectively in various environments.
“The massive shift to voice being the new interface, I think everyone is picking that up,” Chen said. So much more that feels natural in voice that’s impossible with a keyboard. Yet, as we observed, voice is not an interface that people use when other people are nearby. With our noise isolation model, we will give consumers a way to experience a voice interface in the form of our earbuds.
Sonically, Subtle’s earbuds are remarkable for their performance. They create 5x fewer errors than the total for the AirPods Pro 3 + OpenAI’s transcription model. Accuracy Ambiguity aside, Subtle’s product is highly accurate. This places it in an advantageous position against other AI-assisted voice dictation applications such as Wispr Flow, Willow, Monologue, and Superwhisper.
The earbuds leverage Subtle’s proprietary voice isolation models, which enhance computers’ understanding of users in loud environments. This small but mighty feature makes a huge difference in powering individual users’ journeys. Beyond that, though, the initial release represents a huge advance in cross-platform multi-environment device-to-speech communication.