Glow lets you feel the beat while lighting up the street

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Tron-like Glow headphones pulse to the music and your heart. 

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Anyone who has ever attended an electronic dance concert or a nightclub knows that music and vibrant lights go together like a rama lamma lamma ka dinga da dinga dong. Well, a Bay Area-based startup is now converging these two into a slick set of earbuds that have officially launched on Kickstarter.

Aptly dubbed Glow, the first-ever smart headphones with laser light pulse brilliantly (in red, green and blue) to the beat of your favorite music or to the rhythm of your heart. An intuitive 5-way controller communicates with your phone over Bluetooth LE, allowing you to not only play/pause tunes, but activate apps such as Google Now, make calls, send texts and snap pictures as well.

The earbuds’ cords are comprised of Corning’s Fibrance material, which conducts laser light through flexible glass fibers. The pliability of Fibrance allows Glow to maintain its brightness and light uniformity no matter how much you curve, wrap and twist it. At the core of its remote lies an ARM-based MCU along with a built-in microphone, a 5mW laser diode, a tactile switch, a microUSB slot, and a LiPo rechargeable battery.

Currently live on Kickstarter, Glow has already well exceeded its $100,000 goal. However, the team notes that some of its desired features require additional development efforts and hitting a number of stretch goals will ensure that they can be implemented. If the crowdfunding campaign hits $500,000, the team will add bring full iPhone support. If it reaches $750,000, the startup hopes to make Glow dance to your steps and movement using the device’s built-in accelerometer. $1 million? The headphones will then include a built-in heart rate monitor.

“Music is already a very expressive medium, so having light synchronize with the music makes the experience that much better,” a company rep explained.

After watching the video above, we couldn’t help but reminisce about the ATmega32U4 based motion-activated speed suit we featured on Bits & Pieces last year. Similar to Glow for safe late night runs, the DIY suit completely illuminated when the wearer began to run, while flashed every time the wearer walked.