Niantic and Sony Collaborate in Audio AR, Starting with Ingress
Hope soon Niantic work with Samsung to bring the best audio not only Sony. Both have Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with best speakers and Budge PRO.
Samsung are the leading company on Android when most of the people on android buy Samsung.
Tagged:
1
Comments
Just because Sony is working with Niantic, doesn't mean it's coming to Sony smartphones only. In fact, it seems that these new audio experiences will work for all smartphones, but only with the new headphones Sony has revealed.
What are the new audio dont other headphones have?
These are the headphones Niantic and Sony are talking about:
Most noticeable is that they have a "hole" in them, through which the sounds of the surroundings still reach your ear. The technology seems to be so advanced though that you still have good audio quality and, what is important for Ingress, "3D Sound".
Samsung would need to create their own headphones just like that.
All I know is that I have the games audio muted because after hearing the same handful of sounds that the game makes for the umpteenth billion time is annoying, it's not because I "don't want to be cut off from the world".
I have ingress audio off, (miss the original sounds vs the newer prime sounds). And I usually just have headphones on listening to a book anyway.
Those Sony earbuds are $180. A bit high priced for me for headphones that are far too easy to lose.
Didn't Niantic do a partnership with headphones in the past? I'm pretty sure it was with Sennheiser. 🤔
EDIT: Yes it was!
I love the concept, but the Sony headphones are ****. I use bone-conducting headphones primarily so that I can hear my environment but also because ear buds damage the ear canal with long use, and I just don't enjoy the feel of them.
Unless this stuff works with other headphones, it's just another Moto x Niantic style mashup that no-one uses.
Great more pointless stuff noone wants.
What's your fave brand of bone conduction headphones? I'm using aftershokz opencomm, but i'd shift to something better if i could.
@GorillaSapiens I am a big fan of Aftershokz, currently using Trekz Air. I love them so much that when I lost them on a plane a couple of years ago on a flight to Singapore I searched the city in the desperate hope that I would find a store there that carried them.
As for immersive AR audio, it could be a really cool concept. I can't remember the last time I had audio on in a Niantic game.
I have samsung buds and Sony wf-1000 x3
These provide excellent audio quality
So whatever is planned for the link buds, will need to filter to other headsets.
The audio effects in Ingress are hugely important for me, to be properly immersed.
However nearly 2 years ago @NianticBrian confirmed that audio and their counterpart, visual effects, would be permanently removed. I am still extremely salty on this and constantly frustrated with the lack of realization of how important they are to some people, like myself.
I am in the minority.
Yet this press release while, I am truly grateful, that Brian is working much more closely with the marketing department at Niantic to promote Ingress, it does leaves me wondering what actual positive and engaging potential there is, or if it is all hot air?
So when do we get the new “LinkBuds” item added in, which enables for more links when more than two agents deploy to a Portal? 😆
I'm using Aftershockz OpenMove and quite happy with them.
Since I completely forgot about their Sennheiser partnership in 2014, I don't have high hopes here.
WOW - thanks for the tip about bone-conducting headphones, @Perringaiden @GorillaSapiens @Hosette I've had sinus/ear problems and have never found headphones I'm comfortable with. I'm going to try a Shokz!
Ingress has sound?!
Cha-ching, Sony got money from me
Setting the headphones up was really easy. Actually operating them is... taking time to get used to, and they don't feel very comfortable in the ear. Maybe I'm just to stupid too use them, but at the moment, they do not feel like headphones for 180 bucks. I'll try them out for a bit, but at the moment, the upcoming collaboration with Ingress might be the only reason I'll keep them.
No need for headphones. Just mute the sound to conserve the phone battery.