Glow: The First Smart Headphones with Laser Light

Feel the beat. Glow merges state-of-the art sound technology, laser light and a heart rate sensor for an experience like no other.

About this project

The first smart headphones that glow with laser light, Glow pulses brilliantly to the beat of your favorite music or to the rhythm of your heart. An intuitive 5-way controller allows you to not just control your music, but also make calls, text, and use apps with ease.

Music has always been a powerful form of expression, and Glow puts you center stage. These earbuds pack specially-designed wires that diffuse light from a laser. The light pulses to the sound of your favorite tunes, so get out there and rock out in your favorite color.

Get in sync to the most important beat of all. Whether it's running around malls or snowboarding down a mountain, Glow lets you see and track your every beat using an integrated heart rate monitor. Stay in tune with your inner self while you're out doing your thing.

Glow was designed to provide listeners with the clear and balanced audio response they expect from a high-end audiophile product. We have paid special attention to the overall audio profile so that Glow provides natural highs and lows.

We designed Glow headphones to be comfortable and easy to use for everyday activities. The ergonomic design of the asymmetric nozzle follows the natural contour of your ear, so the earbuds fit perfectly and securely. A negative profile recesses completely in the ear, providing comfort even when you're laying down or sleeping.

We used lightweight materials to ensure Glow headphones provide a good long-term listening experience.

Using an intuitive 5-way remote, Glow makes it easy to do what you love to do.

Media Apps: Dedicated buttons for all your music controls (Volume, track, play/pause) that are fully compatible with popular apps such as Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora and more. (Android or iOS*)

Phone Calls: Answer or hang up calls by pressing the center button.

Google: Using the 5-way controller and a single button press you can activate "Google Now" and control your smartphone with your voice.

Camera: Snap a picture with your phone remotely using the controller wirelessly. 

Texts: Listen and respond to texts or messenger requests on your smartphone using Glow’s 5-way controller.

Glow headphones come with an integrated heart rate sensor inside the earbud. The pulse oximeter detects your heart rate. Glow can then synchronize the pulsing of the wire to your beat*.

Using laser-driven Corning Fibrance™, Glow is brighter and more flexible compared to stiff, copper-based electroluminescent (EL) wire. Fibrance Light-Diffusing Fiber is a glass optical fiber optimized for thin, colorful, aesthetic lighting. The flexibility of Fibrance allows it to curve, wrap, or contour around objects while maintaining bright and uniform light.

Our basic features such as glowing to the music and play/pause support will work on iPhone. However, more advanced functionality is currently only on Android. If we can make this stretch goal, we will have enough funds to bring on an iOS developer to bring iPhone support up to parity with Android.

Using the accelerometer, we can make Glow dance to your steps and movement. This feature requires additional development effort and hitting this stretch goal will ensure that we can implement this without delaying the product.

We really want to be able to include a heart rate monitor inside every pair of Glow headphones. We've done the initial design and engineering work, and we have already reached out to manufacturing partners and have a few strong candidates lined up. However, to bring the price point for the heart rate monitor down to an acceptable level, we need volume. Hitting the $1M mark will guarantee that we have enough orders to meet the volume commitment needed to bring this feature to life.