Soundbrenner Pulse is a Berlin-born, Hong Kong-raised wearable metronome for musicians

As more and more wearable devices flood the market, hardware startups with origins outside of Asia are heading East to get closer to manufacturing hubs. One such startup is Soundbrenner, a team that makes a wearable, vibrating metronome for musicians.

Soundbrenner’s first product, the Soundbrenner Pulse, is a watch-like band that straps to a musician’s limb. Tapping the face of the device sets the beat, which emanates in the form of a pulsating vibration.

For the musically disinclined – metronomes, which emanate a sound to set the beat of a piece of music, typically come in the form of an audible click track (or an old-fashioned clinky-clanky thing). Some musicians find this sound distracting. By setting a beat via vibrating pulse, Soundbrenner Pulse lets musicians keep time without making extra noise.

“Our basic idea was to make a vibrating metronome, and then as we worked with other musicians, we decided to make something that you wear with a vibrating metronome function.” says Florian Simmendinger, cofounder of Soundbrenner.

Obviously, the elephant in the room here is the Apple Watch. If Apple’s first wearable product helps spur adoption of smartwatches, single-function wearables like Soundbrenner Pulse might find themselves made redundant.

Simmendinger and the team don’t see this as an issue because Soundbrenner Pulse’s guts are different than those in the Apple Watch. The engines inside it produce a specific vibration that the company feels is more commanding, and therefore better-suited for musicians.

“We tried using LRA, which is what the Apple Watch is using. But this ended up failing us on the most important requirement for musicians, which is that the vibration is strong enough,” says Simmendinger. “You can imagine if you’re a drummer and your hands are in motion and you’re wearing something on your arm, [the vibration] needs to be very strong.”

Ultimately, the Soundbrenner team combined a haptic driver and an ERM vibration motor in order to produce their ideal vibration. “By merging old and new technologies we can provide users with exactly what they need,” Simmendinger adds.

Simmendinger co-founders Julian Vogels and Vinh-Nghi Tiet met at a startup weekend competition in Berlin mid-2014. He says they conceived Soundbrenner’s premise almost immediately. While the team managed to build several prototypes from Germany, they found that their geographical location was hindering their progress. At a local pitch competition they met Manav Gupta, CEO of Brinc, a Hong Kong-based hardware accelerator. Sensing a match, the team packed their bags and moved to the fragrant harbour to join the program’s second batch. Simmendinger says the move was worth it, without question.

“We were in Berlin trying to test different motors, and we could only find two different motors in the entire city. After coming to China, we went to Huaqiangbei [one of Shenzhen’s biggest electronics malls] and there was one booth with an old lady who had thirty five different vibration motors.”

Soundbrenner recently completed a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, raising over US$80,000. The company is in the midst of securing manufacturing partnerships and expects to ship products in November at a retail price of US$149. Beyond online sales, the company is eyeing brick-and-mortar music retailers as one of its main distribution channels.