NextSense As Featured In · Forbes
NextSense Smartbuds · Focus

Get in the zone. Stay there.Timed sessions with audio that adapts as you work.

Brain-responsive audio Distraction blocker Session readouts
Smartbuds · $299 $349
Smartbuds worn in the ear during a Focus session
The Rundown

Focus is the daytime mode in the NextSense app. Pick how long you've got. Put the buds in. The audio does the rest.

01

Adaptive audio

Soundscapes that shift in real time as you work.

02

Three session types

Timer, Blocks, or Smart — built around your schedule.

03

Distraction Blocker

Attention-stealing apps locked out for the session.

04

Session readout

Where your attention went, block by block.

Choose Your Session

Three ways to run a session.

Same engine underneath — Smartbuds sense brain activity through the ear and the audio responds while you work. What changes is how the time is carved up.

Open-ended

Timer

A simple countdown for a set length. No structure, just protected time.

50 min, uninterrupted
Pomodoro-style

Blocks

You choose the work time, the break time, and the number of rounds.

20 on · 5 off · 2 rounds
Built for you

Smart

Tell it how long you have, or when you need to finish. It builds the blocks.

Fitted to a 3:00 hard stop
Work block Break
During a session

Audio that adapts as you work.

Most focus apps play the same playlist whether you're locked in or three tabs deep in something else. Smartbuds sense brain activity in real time, so the soundscape can change with you — steady when you're deep in the task, shifting to pull you back when your attention drifts.

Pick a track designed to keep you alert and attentive, or bring your own audio from any third-party app.

Still availableLocked for the session
Distraction Blocker

Block the noise. Settle in.

Switch it on and the apps that usually pull you away are locked out for the length of the session. Smartbuds notice when you drift, and block what pulls you away.

Working through a Focus session at a desk

The afternoon slump, met.

Focus doesn't ask you to start a new habit. It makes you better at the work you were already going to do.

After a session

See where your attention actually went.

A block-by-block view of focused versus distracted time, your most dialed-in stretch, and your streak as sessions add up.

Session summary · 2 rounds
Focused Distracted Break
41m
Best stretch
78%
Focused time
6
Day streak

Illustrative summary. Your readout is built from your own session.

Focus session comparison chart

Focused versus distracted time across a session.

Nothing here is a grade. It's a record — so you can see which hours and which soundscapes actually work for you.

My Day

Find out when your alertness peaks. Schedule around it.

Your attention isn't flat across the day, and it isn't the same on four hours of sleep as it is on eight. Based on how you slept, My Day maps your natural highs and lows and marks the good windows to Focus, Nap, Meditate, or Sleep — with the option to drop any of them onto your calendar.

Alertness across the day
Morning peak — good window to Focus Focus Mid-afternoon dip — good window to Nap or Meditate Nap or Meditate Late-afternoon rebound — second Focus window Focus 6a10a2p5p10p

Illustrative. My Day anticipates when you tend to focus best based on your sleep — it doesn't predict your day for you.

The Science

Why the ear is the right place to sense the brain.

For decades, measuring brain activity meant a lab: roughly 20 wet electrodes glued to a scalp and hours of setup. Headbands and forehead patches tried to close that gap and mostly traded away signal quality for form factor.

The ear canal is a stable pocket inches from the brain with no hair to push through — and somewhere people already wear something for hours a day. Smartbuds sense and play at the same time, so the sound can respond to what it's reading.

NextSense ear-EEG captured 86.4% of focal seizures detected by traditional clinical methods — with a false alarm rate of just 0.1 per day.

Multi-site clinical study · 20 epilepsy patients · 1,255 hours of simultaneous recording with medical-grade EEG.

Spun out of Alphabet's X in 2020, NextSense raised an oversubscribed $16M Series A led by Ascension Ventures. The founding team includes neuroscientists, engineers, and clinicians from the Google Health sleep research program.

The Hardware

What's actually in there.

Brain sensing
6
Dry EEG contacts around the ear canal and outer ear, plus IMU for motion.
Audio
6 mm
Dynamic drivers and a built-in mic — calls, podcasts, music between sessions.
Weight
5 g
Lower profile than most consumer earbuds. Built for a full workday.
Sample rate
1,000 Hz
Two channels streaming to an onboard processor, responding in milliseconds.

Put them in. Tune out distractions.

Available now. Free shipping. 30-day risk-free trial.

Smartbuds · $299 $349
Spun out of Alphabet's X · Free shipping · 30-day risk-free trial · Focus requires the NextSense app · iPhone 12 or newer (iOS 17+)
Smartbuds · $299 $349