IFA 2024 highlights: The best hearables and wearables from Berlin

It’s September, and 2024 is soon ending. The tech calendar is also winding down for the year. The last of the major trade shows - IFA Berlin - just concluded earlier this week.

IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) in Berlin was celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year as one of the biggest tech expos. At the Messe Berlin fairground in Germany, audio was a big theme. Even wearables made a lot of noise. Here's a look at some of the best wearables and hearables from the trade show.

Amazfit T-Rex 3: The T-Rex 3 from Amazfit is being billed as a budget-friendly adventure watch. It’s a smartwatch that is built on AI. The T-Rex 3 can offer training guidance on preparing for a marathon or any other running event of your choice. The T-Rex 3 goes a step further with its guidance for strength training based on what muscle group you want to build. The smartwatch will simply create a plan to guide you.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra review: How does this rugged smartwatch perform?

The T-Rex 3 offers up to three weeks of battery life (with 13 days of heavy usage), putting watches from Google and Samsung to shame. It comes with a 1.5-inch AMOLED display (with an always-on display), military-grade durability and can be paired with Android and iOS smartphones.

RingConn Gen 2 Smart Ring: RingConn launched a first for smart rings at IFA 2024. The company came to the show with the Gen 2 smart ring and added sleep apnea detection. Both Samsung and Apple have added it to their smartwatches, but this is a first for smart rings. Sleep apnea is a disturbance that can cause you to temporarily stop breathing, for a short time, while you sleep.

RingConn 2 promises 90 percent accuracy after just three hours of wearing the ring. The Gen 2 smart ring has a claimed battery life of 12 hours. The RingConn Gen 2 smart ring is thinner, lighter and longer lasting, will set you back $299 in the US, and doesn’t require any subscription.

Withings BeamO and ScanWatch Nova Brilliant: Withings came to the trade show with not one, but two standout products. The BeamO is a multiscope that allows for a 4-in-1 health checkup. This includes body temperature, heart, and lung health, in under a minute. For now, there is no retail date, but one can expect it to start selling in Q1 2025.

The ScanWatch Nova Brilliant Edition is not just a beautiful-looking smartwatch. It can take medical-grade ECGs (that can detect and alert users to arrhythmias), be a heart rate monitor and one that can receive notifications, all while having a battery life of about 30 days. It’s a more luxurious version of the ScanWatch Nova and will be on the shelves starting in November.

EcoFlow Power Hat: A company known for portable power stations took Berlin by storm by entering the fashion market. Say hello to the Power Hat. It’s a sun hat where the rims are equipped with solar panels. It’s an unusual product that probably won’t be sold in large numbers but is unique in what it does. The solar panel is sewn into the brim. These panels absorb the sunlight and then convert it into usable power to charge your devices via a USB-C port, which is tucked in the inners of the hat.

Honor Watch 5: The Honor Watch 5 has a large and gorgeous 1.85-inch AMOLED display. It’s got all the standard fitness and health tracking features you could imagine along with built-in GPS. There is even some offline storage for music. And thanks to the built-in mic and speaker, you can take calls directly from the smartwatch. It comes in at 35g and 11mm thickness. On a single charge, the Honor Watch 5 is rated to last for 15 days, which is quite impressive.

Also read: Is it time to get your child a smartwatch?

Belkin SoundForm Isolate: Belkin introduced a budget-friendly set of active noise cancellation (ANC) cans. Priced at just $59.99 (approximately ₹5,039), these headphones are set to shake up the budget headphone market. They come with a transparency mode, a built-in relaxation soundscape, a 40-hour battery life (with ANC on), and Bluetooth 5.4 (with multipoint connectivity). They are made with 30% post-consumer recycled materials.

AKG N-Series: It’s always a special day when AKG Acoustics (part of Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics) releases a new set of headphones. The legacy audio company introduced the N9 Hybrid over-ears at IFA this year. They also released the N5 Hybrid wireless earbuds. The N9 Hybrid was the star of the show with 40mm dynamic drivers (equipped with bespoke liquid crystal polymer diaphragms). AKG describes it as “wide-range detail and brilliant dynamic sound". Those who managed to get a hands-on experience at IFA Berlin were immediately blown away by the controlled and well-balanced sound.

Beyerdynamic: Beyerdynamic didn’t want to be left behind and came out with the Amiron 300 wireless earbuds along with the Aventho 300 over-ears at IFA. Beyerdynamic is a company known for its range of wired audio products, so it was a surprise that they released not one, but two wireless audio products at IFA Berlin.

The Aventho 300 (retailing at $400) is the flagship product here as it comes with customisable noise cancelling, Dolby Head Tracking capabilities and the signature Stellar.45 drive units from the company. You get all the other features - Bluetooth Multipoint, customisable ANC, six built-i mics - expected in flagship headphones. The battery life is rated for 38 hours of total charge time.

The Amiron 300, a pair of wireless earbuds, also come with 38 hours of total battery life, customisable ANC and a balanced and refined sound output.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones: Soundcore, an Anker subsidiary, unleashed a set of cans with a unique folding design that can reduce their size by half. Furthermore, these are Soundcore’s most advanced pair of noise-cancelling headphones (with an advanced four-stage noise-cancelling system) to date.

Thanks to the FlexiCurve Structure, the headphones can be folded into a “donut” shape, reducing their size by 50%. These headphones deliver balanced audio with advanced 40mm drivers that are made from Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and Polyurethane diaphragms. These headphones offer up to 60 hours of better life (40 hours with ANC on). A five-minute charge can provide up to eight hours of listening time.

JLab Epic Sport ANC 3: JLab’s Epic Sport ANC 3 sports earbuds can quite literally run a marathon. The TWS earbuds boast a mammoth 52-hour total battery life (42 hours with ANC turned on) and 12 hours from the buds. These earbuds punch above their weight. They come with 10mm dynamic drivers with Knowle’s balanced armature driver. Furthermore, there is also the Knowles Preferred Listening Response Curve, which adjusts the frequency response to match most listeners' preferences.

They deliver deep, resonant bass frequestions, and crystal-clear highs, according to JLab. The earbuds have support for Bluetooth LE, Spatial Audio, Hi-Res Audio, hybrid ANC and JLab’s own transparency mode called Be Aware Audio.

Sahil Bhalla is a Delhi-based writer. He posts @IMSahilBhalla.

Also read: IFA 2024 highlights: All the tech at play in Berlin