Your Mind-Reading Headphones Are Ready to Serve, Best TV Shows to Binge Watch

Have you heard about those new mind-reading headphones?

It’s true. They’re real. They’re called the Master & Dynamic x Neurable MW75 Neuro
Headphones. (Which is quite a mouthful.) And just in case you’re thinking they’re the equivalent of a pair of “Amazing X-Ray Glasses” you’d see in the back of an old comic book, let me stop you. The reviews are in, and these techy gizmos are actually supposed to read your brain waves accurately while delivering high-quality sound.

How? Why? Well, let’s see.

First off, I should note that these new headphones won’t read your mind and decide that: Bobby needs a Coke right now, so notify the refrigerator AI to get on the stick. No, we haven’t gotten to that point yet. But we’re well past the point of having to wear a skull cap full of woven wires and electrodes and then interpreting a graph full of squiggly lines.

If we break this technology down to its basic functions, the headphones work like this:

Our wonderful little brains and their billions of neurons are constantly pumping out electrical signals. They zap out our highs, our lows, our concentrated moments, our stress points. With a press of a button, the MW75 Nuero leaps into action and uses its soft, impulse-sensing fabric ear covers to gather info through electroencephalography (EEG). (So yeah, these are no corner drugstore earbud knockoffs.)

Then the data is processed by some internal electronic wizardry and interpreted by artificial
intelligence to determine our “focus level.” (More on that in a bit.)

Next, with the Neurable phone app, you can read the results of your session and gain insights and suggestions that are designed to help you work smarter. And that’s the real purpose of the device’s mind-reading: finding out when in the day, and in what situations, you’re most productive; determining when to give your little brain buddy a rest; and figuring out how you can potentially reduce your stress levels.

According to the manufacturer, the headphones can even turn active noise canceling on and automatically put your phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode when the headphones sense that you’re deep in your “high focus” mode.

OK, so now let’s talk about these focus levels and what they mean.

High focus is the primo spot you’re shooting for. And Neurable defines that as “a state where you’re mostly focused on a single task that’s highly engaging and challenging. When you work on a single task, you give it your full attention and don’t waste mental energy switching tasks. With some practice, maintaining focus on your goals will become a habit.”

Now that all sounds super peachy, but people who have used these headphone report that we cubicle-bound worker bees rarely get to that totally focused state without a lot of practice and some shut-out-the-world help.

Medium focus is the next level, and it’s described as “a state where you are focused on a task that requires a moderate amount of skill. Or you may be switching between related tasks, such as assembling information to generate a report.”

Lastly comes the lowly low focus: “A state where you may be jumping from idea to idea, like a brainstorm. Short periods of low focus may be caused by a distraction, or a context switch unrelated to a task.”

In other words, this last level is … business as usual. Messages are popping up on your phone, emails are grabbing your attention, meeting times are suddenly switched, coworkers are chatting loudly … etc.

But all that is what the Master & Dynamic x Neurable MW75 Neuro Headphones are designed to help us work on and improve. Will they catch on and aid us in getting our brains working at maximum efficiency? Maybe.

In fact, it seems that all our phones, computers and smartglasses are pulling together with AI charged gusto to get us working harder than ever before. And when we finally hit that vaunted creative plateau, then we can sit back and muse: Oh, for the days when my headphones just helped me relax with some good music. I need a Coke.