Nothing’s charging case Super Mic is a small upgrade to earbud audio

The microphones of your headphones are probably zero. You know, I know, and apparently nothing knows it too. Its corrective? Better microphones – but in the case of load, not the buds.

The EAR 3 buds present what the company calls “Super Mic”. This really means a pair of microphones integrated in the case of headphones, with a button to activate these microphones instead of those integrated into the buds.

Nothing height is that beam form microphones in the case can provide a clearer audio and better noise cancellation, which is probably summed up that you can hold the case right in front of your mouth – traditionally where microphones go – rather than in your ears.

I have been testing the ears 3 for about a week throughout the holidays in New York, and I gave a little test to the Super Mic along the way. Nothing is certainly true that it sounds better than the buds by themselves, in particular in relatively calm areas – the audio recordings are a little less tiny, with a more rounded sound and depth. That said, the first time I tested it during a vocal call with my partner, it could barely make the difference, so for some, it will clearly be a subtle improvement, especially if the quality of the connection is a problem.

Things are more mixed in noisy areas. Nothing has built in a fairly powerful noise cancellation in the two microphone sets. It is impressive to block the unwanted noise – I stood a few meters from a picker hammer and I could not hear it in the recording – but it is so aggressive that it cut my voice in the process, the falling sound and will come out as it could during a call made from a moving train. This happened on the headphones and the super micro, and the latter suffered just as much.

There is a more important problem if you hope to use it for video: latency. Using the Blackmagic Camera application, I spotted an improvement in sound quality whenever I activated Super MIC, but my audio immediately came out of synchronization with the video, my speech no longer makes my lip movements. It will not be a problem for voice calls, but for video calls and especially all hopes to record images for Tiktok, it could kill a lot of Super Mic.

There are other drawbacks of Super MIC. Holding the file to your mouth means, well, holding the case. The buds do not always sound well, but they are hands free, and this is not the case. Move it too far from your mouth or point it in the wrong direction will also ruin your audio fairly quickly. It could make it boring for longer calls, especially on the go, but you will probably not bother you too much if you just need to record a quick voice note or a video.

Compatibility is also a headache. Super Mic where your ordinary headphones are made where your phone cannot make a difference, because the change between microphones is managed by the buds themselves – but that means that it does not work everywhere.

Most vocal and video calls support it, including Zoom and WhatsApp, as well as certain audio recording applications, such as iOS vocal memos. But you cannot use it to save WhatsApp or Snapchat vocal notes, and most Android Phones camera applications only work with the own microphone of the phone. iOS 26 just Adding the option to select an external microphone for video recording at least, so compatibility is actually better for iPhone users, despite nothing does its own Android phones.

The company wants to be clear that it is not its fault. “Most of these applications are by default to the native microphone of the phone and do not give users the possibility of selecting another entry,” said Andrew Freshwater, responsible for the global marketing of intelligent products, said when I asked questions about the limits to be taken care of. “It is an operating system and level of application decision, not ours. We would like to see this flexibility open so that more people can benefit from Super Mic. ”

I will test Super Mic in the coming days, with the rest of the ear audio 3, for a complete review next week.

Photography by Dominic Preston