Timekettle’s new earbuds offer real-time translation on calls

Timekettle unveiled its latest earbuds, the W4 Pro, this week at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The product aims to up the ante on the startup’s focus by bringing real-time two-way translation to phone and video calls.

The earbuds will automatically begin translating calls in 40 different languages, without any input from the user. Predictably, there is some latency: around three to five seconds following speech.

Timekettle notes: “The newly launched feature allows two-way translations to facilitate effortless cross-lingual conversations through any telecommunication application or traditional phone system. It provides bidirectional synchronous translations without disrupting the original voice quality.”

Translated speech will, however, come through louder than the original audio. In addition to those translations, the headphones use onboard AI to provide a summary of the conversation’s contents.

The W4 Pro can also be used in the same manner as earlier Timekettle headphones: by sharing an earbud with another person for face-to-face translations.

The headphones are powered by the company’s newly announced Babel OS, “which delivers lightning-quick transitions with solutions that can anticipate what is being said, adapt to customizable lexicons, and translate with real human emotion and tonality,” per Timekettle.

The operating system is coming to older models, as well. The W4 Pro earbuds go up for sale Sunday, priced at $449.