Oleap Pilot open-ear headphones

Kickstarter:

The next generation open-ear headphones are here – Oleap Pilot brings unprecedented call experience, bass-boosted audio and all-day comfort. Mark the amazing 50dB environmental noise cancellation out of the world’s leading 3-mic spacial ENC. With 2 powerful 16mm dynamic drivers and BassLeap algorithm, it delivers premium audio to open-ear devices. Keep you supported with 10 hours of talk time and vibration-free comfort for a whole day.

At first glance, I thought it was yet another bone conduction headphones. However, it uses audio drivers instead of bone conduction vibration to generate sound.

Oleap Pilot uses AI-powered algorithm to boost the bass and cancel background noise. If it works as well as the reviewers who tested the samples claim, then it could be a pretty innovative product.

Background check

The brand Oleap is trademarked by Shenzhen Huangli Technologies Co,Ltd. Their company website show that they produce headphones.

The company’s legal representative is Liu Zhi. He is also the creator of their Kickstarter campaign.

We were unable to find the patent and trademark that they claim to have for the technology that eliminates background noise:

The patent VoiceOn™ ENC algorithm eliminates environmental noises up to 50dB, and that means your team hears your voice without background noise.

However, we managed to find a trademark for VoiceOn by Symtron Technology, Inc. This is probably the supplier or Oleap could potentially be infringing on the trademark.

There are many options for open-ear headphones available on Amazon for starting from USD 28, but if Oleap Pilot is as good as it claims then it would be a strong contender to disrupt the market, if you can stomach the retail price of USD 129.

Scam or not

While the campaign does not present itself with more transparency, we were able to trace the brand back to the Shenzhen company. It is not uncommon for companies to want to build a brand instead of being associated with the company. We understand.

But creators need to understand that Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general is different from ecommerce sites. Trust is key to gaining loyal supporters who are early adopters and willing to invest in a good idea. By being more upfront with who they are, it would help give them greater credibility.

It also make claims to a patent and trademarked technology but does not back up these claims. This makes us a little doubtful about the reliability of what they say on the campaign page.