Bragi is a German technology company headquartered in Munich, Germany, that designs, develops and sells wireless smart earphones; the Bragi OS, the operating system for next-generation computing platforms; and the Bragi App for smartphones.
Bragi's hardware products include the computing platform The Dash. and The Headphone. While The Dash is a wireless smart earphone and personal assistant, The Headphone is a wireless earbud. The devices can be connected to other Bluetooth devices such as smartphones, tablets and computers to stream music or make phone calls. The Dash extends this functionality with Bragi OS, which brings features such as the training coach for running, swimming and cycling activities; the Bragi Kinetic User Interface (Bragi KUI) including the Head Gestures and MyTap (Beta) (now called Shortcut). By April 2017, Bragi sold more than 100,000 units, The Dash and The Headphone combined.
History
Bragi was founded by the Danish entrepreneur Nikolaj Hviid in 2013. He created the concept for The Dash, after having been CEO of a design agency and head of design at Harman. The project was brought to life by a team consisting of Nikolaj himself, Josef Scheider, the former head of mechanical design at AKG, Arne Loermann, head of design, and Toby Martin, head of software at Bragi. A year later, the team had grown from 4 to 20 people.
After completing the feasibility study on The Dash, Bragi started a crowdfunding campaign for it between February 9, 2014, and March 31, 2014. The initial goal of US$260,000 was reached in less than 48 hours. In January 2015 "The Dash" was awarded the "Innovation Award" of the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) held in Las Vegas. Bragi brought The Dash to the market in late 2015.
By November 2015, Bragi reached 85 employees and received US$22 million investment from a group of American, European and Asian investors in November 2015.
On September 5, 2016, Bragi introduced 'The Headphone' as its second hardware product, 2 days before the introduction of the Apple AirPods. The Headphone is a stripped-down version of The Dash: it is a wireless earbud that can stream audio from any Bluetooth device letting the user take or make phone calls, or access the phone's digital assistant. Unlike The Dash, it lacks smart features such as fitness tracking, heart rate monitoring, gesture controls, and has no smartphone app.
During the launch event, Bragi introduced the Bragi OS 2.1. It brought many bug fixes in addition to new features such as the ability to synchronize The Dash with Google Fit and the Apple HealthKit, Touch Lock to prevent inadvertent gestures from impacting The Dash, shuffle option for the internal music player and on-demand heart rate tracking.
On November 21, 2016, Bragi released another software update for the Bragi OS, with version number 2.2. In this version, Bragi introduced its Kinetic User Interface (Bragi KUI). It is a technology that turns its user's body and movements into the user interface for operating Bragi products. Bragi KUI includes Head Gestures, where the user does head nods and shakes to give commands to The Dash, and MyTap (Beta) (later renamed as Shortcut), which recognizes a double tap on user's cheek and triggers user-defined actions. Moreover, in addition to general OS bug fixes, features such as the WindShield and Apple Watch connectivity; and improvements in the heart rate monitor have been introduced with this release.
On April 1, 2019, Bragi announced they were selling off their hardware business and stopped selling The Dash
Products
The Dash
Bragi brought The Dash to the market in late 2015. It is a touch- and head gesture-controlled truly wireless smart earphone and a personal assistant that comes pre-installed with Bragi OS. It can be used standalone or connected to a Bluetooth device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher. It streams stereo audio through a Bluetooth connection or uses the internal music player on the right earphone with 4-GB flash storage to playback stereo audio. The audio playback time of The Dash is up to 3 hours depending on system usage and 15 hours on the go, while the charging case can recharge the device for five times. The Dash can be used in standalone mode, where the user wears only the right earphone and double taps on it to power on.
The Dash can track the user's movements and body metrics through its IMU. Additionally, it tracks its user's pace, steps, cadence, distance and measures heart rate and energy spent in calories while running, swimming and cycling. It provides real-time audio feedback during an activity. User's activity data can be transferred to a smartphone using the Bragi App.