A clear shell frames circular acoustic chambers, while wired listeners get a 3.5 mm jack and quick charging delivers 2.4 hours in five minutes.
The new Headphone (1) arrived at a sweltering launch and signaled Nothing’s first step into high-end audio. Carl Pei, who founded the company in 2020, set the tone before specs and demos. “Tech today feels more like a trap than a tool,” he told the assembled media. “We’re still stuck on tapping on apps, on screens… smartphones have become engines for doomscrolling. Tech is doing the opposite of making us feel creative.”
Pei framed the moment as a change in direction. “All our earlier products were in mature categories like smartphones and earbuds,” he said. “Now we’re taking more risks, first with ear (open) then with our own Essential Space AI. Now it’s time for us to shift from being followers of the market to being innovators. We have to focus on software – it goes hand in hand with hardware.”
The stakes, in his telling, are the brand’s “two most ambitious products to date,” a pair of high-end headphones and the first true flagship smartphone.
Function matches form through physical interaction. A central Button, fully customizable in the Nothing X app, sits beside a Roller for volume and switching noise-cancelling on and off and a Paddle for navigating. “Controls are guesswork on most headphones today,” said Pei. “We wanted to make it a lot more intuitive with Headphone (1).”
On the technical side, Headphone (1) supports hi-res audio and spatial audio for a shifting 360-degree field. A 3.5 mm jack covers wired listening. The Nothing X app includes an eight-band EQ and custom presets tuned by KEF. Battery life is quoted at up to 80 hours without active noise cancelling or 35 hours with it on, and a five-minute charge gives 2.4 hours of playback.
The physicality of the buttons and the build pushes against the usual template for over-ears. Nothing’s transparent aesthetic still divides taste, but the brand continues to pair its distinct design language with hardware and software that work in tandem. Five years after its founding, Nothing still finds ways to surprise.
