Neopon claims its new product offers all the advantages of TWS earbuds with none of the drawbacks

Every OEM and its subsidiary appears to be in need of its own TWS earbud launch these days. Such accessories are indeed popular, and may entail the advantages conferred by a lack of cables and other features such as active noise cancelling (ANC) and voice-assistant support. However, they also have their drawbacks, not the least of which may be the fatigue, discomfort or even pain that may result from their prolonged wear.

This may be due to their form-factors (the most prominent of which are AirPod-clone or non-AirPod-clone), which might require that they end up pushed deep into the ear depending on the user's individual otological shape. Neopon is a start-up that claims its more unique TWS earbud design solves these and other problems (findings that these devices may be capable of hosting the microbial load of the average chopping-board, for example).

It consists of a new shape of bud that, much like a recent patent attributed to Sony, connects to an ear-worn hook via a short flexible cable. The effect would, admittedly, be that of a hearing aid were it not for their shiny black finish. Neopon's idea is that the bud component's position can be adjusted freely - perhaps not even in the ear at all - while being retained near enough the user's head to deliver its "stereo" audio. This, then, may avoid user fatigue or worse symptoms.

This new form of TWS earbud is now available as a reward on its Kickstarter campaign to manufacture the same. (It claims to have a working prototype for them, although their production may be impacted due to Covid-19-containing practices at their China-based facility.) The devices are described thereon as equipped with Bluetooth v5.2 thanks to their Qualcomm QCC3040 chipset.

This spec also apparently confers many of this company's wireless-audio properties, including cVc audio technology; TrueWireless Mirroring; the Amazon Alexa Voice Service; aptX and Google Assistant support. They also have a case (which may in fairness be larger than average) which is rated to add 20 hours of battery life to the 6 hours' worth of charge held by the earphones themselves.

The Neopon TWS earbuds start at US$39 on their crowdfunding platform, whereon they have attracted about 43% of their $10,000 goal (correct at time of writing). The start-up estimates that they will not ship until December 2020, however.