Nothing's big microphone gamble with the Ear (3) is fascinating – but it's underbaked for now

Nothing's made quite a splash in the last few years, going from an upstart to a brand that gets way more coverage and interest than its age would suggest – but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything it touches turns to gold. The interesting approach it has to design can be divisive (I'm looking at you, Headphone (1)), and if you take big swings you have to be prepared to occasionally miss.

That's basically how I feel the Nothing Ear (3) feels at the moment – a fairly big swing with a really curious new addition that doesn't quite stick the landing. The key part is that you can get the older Nothing Ear (2) for £130 right now, so the £180 price tag of the newer model takes some justifying.

The big change that Nothing has made, then, to try to win people over to the new generation, is Supermic. This system adds a push-to-activate microphone and button embedded right there in the earbuds' case, letting you get way a higher-quality microphone when you need it, compared to the built-in beamformed mics on the earbuds themselves.

The idea is really interesting, in an era when so many people are using external wireless microphones for content creation and videos – why not integrate one into the earbuds you have with you anyways, to streamline your whole kit? I get the hook, and I think there's something there that could really work for younger customers who love making TikToks and more.

Still, in practice over the last week or so, I've not found it at all smooth to use. I've had it connected to my iPhone 15 Pro, and the implementation of the Supermic is super mixed. By default, when you're not on a call or anything, holding down the microphone button starts Siri or your voice assistant of choice, so you can ask it a question.

That makes sense, I guess; when you're on a call, meanwhile, holding down the button (or clicking it once if you toggle that setting) switches your mic over to the case, after a brief delay, and you can keep talking in appreciably higher quality. I also found this worked in the Voice Memos app, so I could record tests, swapping between the two.

Where it doesn't work, though, is on any video app I tried – if I started filming a video then held down the mic button, my video would immediately end and Siri would start listening – not what I want! There's no setting in the Nothing X app to change this right now, and I don't have any info from Nothing about whether updates are planned, either.

My take is that this basically completely negates the single most persuasive use-case I can think of for the microphone, and turns it from a neat little extra into something superfluous (not that I think I'd use it much anyway). The good news is that the hardware works nicely, but Nothing is going to have to pay attention to this and get it updated on the software side.

With sound quality that's very solid for the price but nothing exceptional, and noise-cancelling that doesn't come on by a huge amount despite the price hike, these aren't the home run people were hoping for, especially by contrast with the likes of Apple's new AirPods Pro 3 for just about £40 more – the latter are a far better option for iOS users, for sure.