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Comment by chockablock | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a reasonable claim. Those Etymotics are just a mic-and-speaker system that does 'compression' (in the audio engineering sense of that word)--they're actually more analogous to an in-ear hearing aid.

[Edited to be less snarky, before I noticed the reply]

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They dynamically adapt to the environment. I'd call that pretty smart for earplugs - certainly more directly applicable to their intended usage than smartphone-style connectivity. [edited to remove snark]

Yeah, those etymotic's are smart in their own right. I'm just riding the "smart wearable" trend and making the "world's first smart" claim based on the understanding of smart being a connected device! :)

Fair enough.

Arguments about marketing aside, the 'Hush' and the 'Gun Sport Pro' have very different capabilities and serve different functions and markets.

It's too easy when you see a new product to point to something similar and say 'Meh--nothing new here'. In this case I think there's real innovation and I responded to your post to try to make that point.

Fair enough. I'm a musician so that's the first thing that came to mind when I heard "smart earplugs" (Etymotic have a wide range of products beyond the GSP). I do have to work in a noisy office environment sometimes, and so these could be great for that. Right now I have a giant pair of construction-site style over-the-ear cans that I combine with various noise generators.

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