Hearables or smart headphones or earbuds are electronic in-ear devices designed for multiple purposes. The category is split between hearables for hearing health, and hearables for other applications.

The neologism "hearable" is a hybrid of the terms wearable and headphone, as hearables combine major assets of wearable technology with the basic principle of audio-based information services, conventional rendition of music and wireless telecommunication. The term was introduced in April 2014 simultaneously by Apple in the context of the company's acquisition of Beats Electronics and product designer and wireless application specialist Nick Hunn in a blogpost for a wearable technologies internet platform.

Hearables are often referenced as a subset of wearables. Sometimes the terms "smart headphones" or "smart advisors" are also used to denominate hearables. The news agency Reuters in its "Journalism media and technology predictions 2015" ranked voice-driven virtual assistants as an important field of innovation, including voice recognition software like Apple's Siri, Amazon's Echo, or Me-OS on Vinci headphones.

The first description of a wearable ear-worn multimedia platform for health monitoring, heart rate monitoring, entertainment, guidance, and cloud-based communications was described by Valencell in 2006. Current advancements in the development of hearables aim at feature integration, size reduction, and covering a diverse range of applications. Controlled by touch, movement, thought or voice (or any combination of the mentioned control mechanisms) these miniaturized in-ear buds are designed primarily for the purposes of mobile communication, real time information services, activity tracking and various monitoring applications focusing on the wearers health conditions and body performance.

The hardware architecture typically comprises

Most of the "Hearables" seen to date are Bluetooth devices that use phones or PCs as the central computing unit. Vinci smart headphones, announced in 2016, incorporated a dual-core CPU, local storage, Wi-Fi, and 3G connectivity that allow users to use without a phone.

One important benefit of placing the entire interaction unit in-ear and addressing users purely through acoustic signals is the lower grade of overall distraction compared to vision based augmented reality tools or wearables with tactile signal, measuring and interaction mechanisms. At the same time acoustic warning signals – for example in case of an otherwise unnoticed medical crisis – are, as experiments have shown, more effective and immediate than visual indicators. Furthermore, the measurement of biometric data such as temperature, heart rate or oxygen saturation can be monitored through via PPG with significantly higher reliability and better response times through in ear monitoring than contact devices placed on wrist or torso.

A substantial amount of research around hearables is dedicated to aiding the hearing impaired and the increasing number of elderly people struggling with conventional input/output devices such as keyboard, mouse or touchscreen, as it is reflected for instance by the recent cooperation between the EHIMA (European Hearing Industry Manufacturer's Association) and the Bluetooth Special Interest Groupworks on the enhancement of conventional hearing aids by applying the newest Bluetooth generation for additional streaming of music, telecommunication and audio notifications. The European Commission has initiated a similar research project in mid 2013, with a projected runtime until summer 2016. This so-called "AAL Joint Programme" also involves the "Austrian Ministry of Traffic, Innovation and Technology", the Austrian Society for Research Funding and several privately owned technology companies. A somewhat more ambitious project is the inclusion of EEG in hearables, making it an example of ear-EEG.