- New Neurable headphones have weekly brain-age tracking; anxiety resilience scores
- 2-minute cognitive snapshot; real-time cognitive strain detection
- 44g lighter design than the inaugural set – and they're $200 cheaper!
Ever wished your headphones offered a daily two-minute check-up on your brain health, delivered as you down your morning cup of concentration juice? These new mind-reading cans promise just that.
I'm actually no stranger to Neurable's desire to read our minds via headphones. I've been following this partnership between Neurable and Master & Dynamic since July 2023 and I even got to try out the MW75 Neuro upon which the new MW75 Neuro LT are based, in October last year.
I was impressed at the time, but here's the thing: Neurable has been very busy since then. Now, there's a newer, lighter, cheaper set called the Neurable MW75 Neuro LT and they're priced at $499 (or around £375 or AU$760, as a rough guess). And that, reader, is $200 cheaper than the inaugural, sold out, available-to-regular-consumers $699 / £629 set.
And given that the newest Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 come in at $799 / £629 / AU$1,299 and the also-new Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) are $449 / £449 / AU$699, it's not hard to see that with that unique mind-reading ability, the Neurable option (available in green, black or blue finishes) is reasonably competitive as high-end option among the best wireless headphones…
Neurable WM75 LT: where's your head at?
I'm very interested in these headphones, especially when you consider that Neurable has managed to shave 44g off the build (and I never found the inaugural set heavy, exactly, but they were substantial) yet still squirrel away the same 12-channel dry EEG sensors invisibly, in the ear cushions.
I've yet to try them, but for this money (aka flagship 'normal' headphone money) I think they're an open goal for the likeable Boston neuro specialist Neurable.
Imagine a morning ritual involving a "two-minute cognitive snapshot" to understand your brain's readiness for the day ahead – I mean, yes please! I do want to know how set up for the day my most valuable asset is (it's my mind, no matter what anyone says) and get a handle on what Neurable calls my "cognitive energy budget" for the day, if you will.
Neurable assures me that once again, you simply wear your MW75 Neuro LT like any premium headphones and let their advanced EEG sensors invisibly track your cognitive state. In return, you can receive gentle "Brain Break" prompts when your attention naturally dips – aka, before you feel mentally drained or burnt out.
And you can also get evening insights, to review your cognitive patterns and discover which environments, times or activities might optimize your mental performance (that whole morning- or evening-person may actually be a thing, eh?) and for me, simply knowing when you really ought to take a break for your mental health is surely an important thing.
Should we be worried about our line managers somehow intercepting this information, accusing us of poor brain health and/or productivity and selecting a 'younger brain' for the job?
I'd be lying if it hadn't crossed my mind, but when I spoke with the company late last year on this very topic, Neurable's founder Dr. Ramses Alcaide assured me that all of the processing is on-device (rather than in-app) and absolutely anonymous as soon as it leaves.
Update: Neurable has contacted me to say that the claim above remains true for the original MW75, but the new LT version actually uses cloud processing in combination with on-device processing for some of its new metrics. The company didn’t reveal exactly what data is being sent to the cloud, but this has the potential to change my mind pretty drastically about the idea of using the product. TechRadar will try to take a deeper look into the changes, to find out more about what kind of data will go off-device, how it’s stored, and for what purpose.
So there we have it, second-generation mind-reading headphones are real and at a price tag that would have them vying for a spot in our best headphones buying guide. And I can't wait to try them if I possibly can.
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