First 3D printed earphones shop opens in New York
Customized earbuds don’t sound new and have already become popular, but to get them, complex ear mold should be made and it’s likely that the earbuds will cost you about a thousand dollars. In July, 2014, Hardware startup Normal started producing its custom 3D-printed earphones for the US market.
Their goal is to provide reasonably priced individually customized 3D printed earbuds. These new earbuds are custom-built according to photos of your own ears.
They are totally personalized for the ears of a particular user. Users take pictures of their own ears using the special Normal’s mobile application and send them to Normal. After that engineers develop the necessary earphones. Last Saturday a special Normal shop was opened in Manhattan. So now customers can come there and get their ears photographed.
As soon as they submit the order, Normal takes a picture of the two ears and lets you choose the color of the buds. There are seven different colors available. The earbuds will be customized for the color of connector and cord and also the length of the cord.
To personalize each pair of earphones Normal uses Stratasys Fortus 250mc 3D printers. The price of each pair is $199 and the company promises they will be delivered in about 48 hours.
Last year the company got $5 million from Michael Ovitz, The Kraft Group, RRE Ventures and NEA. The store will become a place where everybody can stop and watch 3D printing work and the company employees set up the earphones.
The most peculiar thing about Normal is that it’s a factory, a store and the headquarters at the same time. At present they have ten 3D printers. Normal company is the first to use 3D printers for mass production of consumer goods. They hope that specialized 3D printing with a wide range of possibilities will grow far beyond being successful with hobbyists.
All images: Normal