Timekettle WT2 Edge W3 Translator Device, Bidirection Simultaneous Translatio...

This is my first experience with an in-ear translator and the experience has been positive so far. I have used it to converse with coworkers from Mexico, Russia, France (oh yeah, really necessary!) and India. This gizmo can even recognize the lovely Indian accent and speak back to you in that accent! To use the simultaneous translation mode — of course, even a UN top translator cannot do pure simultaneous translation due to language semantic and grammatical differences not to mention the difficulties with idioms — you give one of the earbuds to the other party and wear the other one yourself. Your iPhone is not needed for picking up the speech but acts as the neural brain for the translation work. This may also explain why they decided not to include regular earphone functions as, alas, one of your buds will probably spend more time in other people’s ears, and not everyone cleans their ears regularly like you do. This mode is my favorite, but you need to be patient with the slight delays in translation; the speed seems to spend mostly on the speed of your Internet connection. I haven’t tried the offline mode yet even though I bought that version. The listening mode is good for watching foreign movies. It uses your iPhone’s mic to pick up the sound and then extract speech and translate. Depending on the audio quality of your TV or amplifier, the results can be inconsistent, but it works most of the time for me (I play videos mostly on my 16 inch MacBook Pro with its awesome speakers). It’s lots of fun. A mode called touch mode works like a pair of walkie talkies: you give one bud to the other person, then each of you taps the bud (like on the original AirPod) before speaking. You don’t hold the bud’s side when you speak, just tap and speak. This mode is great when you are in a noisy environment so the system knows when and who’s talking. There’s one speaker mode where you wear the bud(s) while the other person uses your iPhone running the TimeKettle app. This saves you from sharing your bud with someone who doesn’t wash often… As long as you have a strong Internet connection or have downloaded the offline content, and have a little patience, this gizmo works pretty well. It even works in noisy restaurants and bars for me. And yes, I set my end to Indian English. That alone is worth the price!

1-Star Review: Timekettle WT2 Edge/W3 Translator Device – A Disappointing Experience in France. I purchased the Timekettle WT2 Edge/W3 Translator Device (Offline Version) for a trip to France, hoping its promised bidirectional simultaneous translation and offline capabilities would make communication seamless. Unfortunately, it fell far short of expectations and felt grossly overpriced for its performance. Despite downloading the offline language pack for French, the device frequently failed to work without an internet connection, rendering it useless in areas with poor signal. The "real-time" translation was anything but—lagging by up to a minute and a half, leaving me struggling to keep up with conversations as they moved on. This made interactions frustrating and awkward, defeating the purpose of a translator. For a device priced at a premium (closer to $350), I expected reliability and speed, but it performed more like a $30 gadget. I’m deeply disappointed and wouldn’t recommend it unless significant improvements are made.

I purchased the WT2 Edge/W3 Translator Device for an upcoming trip to Spain. I was a little suspicious that these earphones would work, but a friend said I should try them. After using them for a week or two, here are my thoughts. My first attempt at using them was with an online video in Spanish. They worked okay but sometimes lost the conversation when it became too fast. I was worried at first, but then I tried them with my partner from Spain. Surprisingly, they translated her conversation with me with about 95% accuracy, maybe even 99%. Very impressive! So with this, I would say that these translators are perfect for one-on-one conversations. Not so much with groups of people or videos that may speak very quickly or have overlapping conversations, which makes sense for this type of product. I did find success with videos when it was one person speaking at a medium speed. For these reasons, I am giving it five stars. Not perfect, but it definitely exceeded my expectations and would allow me to have a conversation with a Spanish speaker with ease. As for customer service, I ordered the offline package. This package comes with a card with a code that allows you to download the offline content to use the product without wifi or Internet service. The card was either left out of my package or lost in the initial unpackaging of the translators. Either way, I called customer service late in the evening and received a message they were closed. I figured I would call back on Monday when they were open. On Monday morning, I received a call from a random number. Thinking it was a sales call about my car warranty, I ignored it. When I listened to the message, it was from a representative whose initials are GM (not sure if Amazon allows names in reviews) from Timekettle, the product maker. He was returning my call to see how they could help me. I told them my offline card was missing and that I would be traveling to Spain in a few days. GM took my name and order number and sent the card the very next day to ensure I had it before my trip! He even called again to make sure I received it. I was absolutely shocked that they returned my call so quickly and handled the issue within 24 hours. Awesome! I am looking forward to using these as I practice my Spanish and testing them with friends in Spain.

If you are looking for a product that is going to accurately translate, what you are saying that this is not the product for you. If you are someone that feels that something is better than nothing then this is a product for you. This was a very interesting product for me to experience. Initially I felt that this product was worth the $300 then after using it for several weeks I realize that there were a lot of flaws with this product. The biggest flaw is during time of use. There are these random responses that my partner using the other AirPod would receive. As a matter fact, there were times when profanity was translated, when no profanity was even used. It’s almost like if someone had hacked into the translator and was just trying to sabotage this product. It seems like the longer you use it the more issues and problems arise. Also, the off-line purchase was not worth the money. I feel like I could’ve avoided that extra payment and use the product without it just fine. Once again if you feel that 60 to 70% translation accuracy is satisfactory then this product might be worth purchasing.

The customer service is great. The idea of these is right out of Star Trek. What’s better than a Universal Translator?? The problem is that there are some latency issues with the online translation. Even with high speed internet connectivity, conversation needs to be slow and deliberate most of the time. Another challenge is when the two people talking are very close together, and the earpiece for one picks up the conversation of the other and tries to translate the wrong language. It can be very entertaining at times. I’ve found myself using the screen translation on my phone (hosting the app) more than relying on the earpiece, as that translates more quickly than it broadcasts to the earpiece. My experience has been between Brazilian Portuguese and English. The Portuguese doesn’t yet have a download for offline translation, so the internet is mandatory. I’m hoping they get Portuguese done for download and that it solves some of the speed issues. I have seen negative reviews or ones that just say to use Google translate, but honestly I feel these have a wider variety of applications, particularly in public settings when you don’t want your phone barking at everyone. Also, although there is some latency, it does handle the conversations simultaneously from both users, which makes conversation flow a bit more natural. There are a few advantages to the touch mode, and to the M2 (and assuming M3) that include hearing the translation of your words in your own ear (helps to learn) and also somewhat isolating your earpiece to your turn to speak with a tap.

UPDATE: I stand by all my positive assessments posted in the original review but I would like to address the factors attributed to my previous downsides. The Timekettle Service Team did eventually reach out to me seeking a solution to my software and/or hardware defect. The result is that they did send me a new earbud relatively quickly. Although, I did not have insurance on the product, they did stand by their product/service and made me whole. Based on this action and my original assessment that the translating technology is awesome, I am changing my review to 5 stars! My recommendation for users is to purchase insurance protection, it’s worth it!!!! Original review: I wanted to let people know that I purchased for Polish/English conversations and the translations are great. The downside is that the earbud stopped working shortly after purchase and customer support it not helpful. I have made many attempts to work with support and they are nice but after a couple of simple attempts to address the issue, they then say that they will call me back and if cannot be fixed at that point that they will escalate the issue. Not sure what that means??? They never call back!😝 when I purchased there was not a 3 year insurance option. If you purchase this product you MUST get the insurance!!!!! That may have helped the situation… in this case, I would need to spend another $350 but I think I may wait until another product comes along…. A shame!!!!!

In order for these to work, it seems that it has to be a pretty quiet room. I bought these to help navigate a Spanish speaking country and they were next to worthless. I did have it set to the correct type of Spanish, but trying to hold a conversation with a taxi driver for a 4 hour drive just didn't work. It did not understand me (American English) because when it printed out what it heard it was way off base. This was with no radio on, just the car (windows closed) background noise. Second round was in a restaurant. Yeah, that didn't go very well either. Tried to use it to help understand the waiter, but once again, I am assuming it was too noisy. I saw a Youtube video on these and they looked promising, however, this was two people in what looked like a small room with no other noises. I have seen other comments with regards to the comfort, and I can confirm, these are uncomfortable. For the price I was expecting more. As much as I wanted this idea to work (which I thought was a great idea) I would say stay with Google Translate.

After trying many other options for communicating with my non-English speaking friends and relatives we finally found something that does a really great job. The ability to have a natural conversation without typing or tapping the headset is really what sets these apart. They delay is noticeable but does not really impede the flow of the conversation. Online mode offers more regional specific translations of a language but is somewhat slower, the offline mode reduces the number of regional specific translations but is somewhat faster. It really does work well we've found the translations to be about 98% accurate. Some criticisms, a better design on the fitment of the ear piece. The lack of an adjustable rubber inset on a rather slick ear piece dosen't allow for a tight fit. This also would likely improve the volume which could use a little boost, but it's more than adequate. Finally a microphone that picked up less from surrounding conversations would be great as it sometimes translates conversations of others near you, and those usually don't translate well at all. It is definately worth the money. We tried the M3 version which has some other benefits, less expensive, longer battery life, and ability to use with the phone and listen to music. But, ultimately what we purchased them for was conversational translation and we found that having to tap the button everytime you wanted to speak with the M3 version was unnatural, but the M3's did an adequate job as well.

Easy enough to operate.

Read about this product online and feature at CES. Translation is pretty good. Speech recognition could be improve. Operational modes good. But could be even better for business users if the simultaneous translation could be used with a bigger audience like in larger meetings or at presentations. Right now using phone has limitation in a bigger room. Look forward to improvements. Hopefully with software update and not having to buy a new model.

Son muy buenos traductores en tiempo real la traducción la hacen de inmediato y muy entendibles si lo haces una persona de idioma diferente al tuyo pero nativa es necesario hablar lento y no mucho tiempo para q el traductor haga su trabajo casi perfecto

While sitting with a native Spanish speaker, alone in a quiet room, the translation was about 50% accurate. You also need to wait until the other person is completely done speaking or it will try to translate all voices at once. Conversation is not possible with this. It is a great idea, but at that price point I expect 100% accuracy with voice isolation. I will wait a few years until the technology becomes better.

No, mucho retardo, pierdes la mitad de la idea.