SMS Audio Sports Earphones to Use Intel’s Wired Energy Harvesting Technology

SMS Audio, whose principal investor is rapper and entrepreneur Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, launched with Intel sport-oriented in-ear headphones for the holiday season that incorporate a charging solution and integrated heart rate monitor designed by Intel. A launch date wasn’t given for the sub $150 earphones, dubbed the SMS Audio BioSport In-Ear Headphones powered by Intel. The heart rate monitor will work with the RunKeeper fitness app.

Intel discussed the technology at CES in January and SMS Audio launched a line of sports headphones in June during CE Week. On why the announcement was made Thursday -- far ahead of the Q4 shipping timeframe -- and far after the June news, SMS Audio President Brian Nohe said the company didn’t want to “muddy” that launch with talking about the Intel product because the sports products endorsed by NBA player Carmelo Anthony were “enough news” by themselves.

Another reason could be that the Sync products endorsed by Anthony are Bluetooth wireless headphones, and the technology introduced with Intel is decidedly wired since the Intel design relies on a smartphone headphone jack for power. During the webcast, Intel General Manager Mike Bell outlined the usage model of the biometric headphones, saying by connecting the phones to the smartphone jack, users get high-quality sound from SMS headphones and biometric data from the heart rate sensor “without having to worry about pairing or batteries or charging.”

In differentiating the SMS biometrics earphone from similar products on the market, Bell said others have an outboard box, which Bell called a “brick,” along with Bluetooth. He quickly added, “There’s nothing wrong with Bluetooth,” but said Intel engineers put in “magic” that allows the in-ear sensor to be fueled by the power we can “harvest off the audio jack.” The dual-branded earphones also bank off the RunKeeper app, which is available around the world and is “as close to an open standard in the exercise world as there is at the moment,” according to Bell.

Intel created the low-power circuitry that allows the sensor in the earphones to harvest the energy from the smartphone, Bell said. He called it the first example of Intel showing that it’s a “multi-faceted company” with expertise in silicon, software and systems. On whether the energy-harvesting technology developed for the earphones could be used in other products, Bell said, “anything’s possible.”

The wearables market offers possibilities for extensions of the technology, Bell said. As people put more devices on their body in the wearables space, it makes sense to “figure out how to do that without adding more and more batteries,” he said. Intel is looking at “body area networking” so the different wearable devices work together, he said. Other research areas for wearables are solar power and figuring out how to convert kinetic energy from a person’s movement to power, he said. “For wearable technology to go from the buzzword it is today to something real, it has to be a really seamless, frictionless experience,” he said. The fewer batteries and radios, the better, he said.

In response to a question on adding more sensors and capabilities, Bell referred to Intel not being a company to take “the Swiss Army Knife” approach. With the heart-rate monitor, Intel solved problems of “using the least energy possible.” Whether it would be possible to use another type of jack for harvesting technology, he cited jacks that apply more power, making an extension of the technology “a no-brainer.” It would also be possible to do it wirelessly “if someone wanted that,” he said.

On future extensions of the partnership behind heart-rate monitoring, Nohe said, “obviously when a company like Intel finds a partner to work with, they don’t want to invest a lot of time, effort and energy and have it become a one-trick pony.” Future products are “on the drawing board,” he said, referring generally to a next round of products coming out over the next year or two.

The companies didn’t detail the financial arrangement of the partnership and said only that it is “strategic” with “no financial entanglement.” The products fall under the SMS sports line, with Carmelo Anthony, an investor in the company, as the face of the product, Nohe said. On whether the partnership is exclusive, Nohe said Intel works on a variety of different programs but this is “first to market and we'll be strong in the marketplace.” Bell didn’t comment.