What if I told you that for just $9.9, you could get a Bluetooth earbud with real-time AI translation?
Wouldn’t you be just a little tempted?
Well, a huge number of foreigners have already fallen for it—hard.
During last year’s Black Friday, a wave of low-cost AI earbuds from brands like Miniso went absolutely viral overseas.
Compared to other pricey AI gadgets, these earbuds are all about simplicity and affordability.
A Miniso X30 translation earbud sells for $17.99, and PAXA’s Bluetooth earbud goes for $16.9.
But some are even cheaper—$9.9, no joke.
And it’s not just the sales numbers that exploded—these earbuds blew up on international TikTok too.
Influencers flooded the feed with AI-themed promo videos, and many of them racked up millions of likes.
Foreign users couldn’t get enough, flooding the comments with:
“Need this!”
“Take my money!”
“This is exactly what I was looking for!”
But here’s the funny part—when you actually watch the videos, the storylines are hilariously similar.
A foreigner walks by, quietly gossiping.
Suddenly, the person with the earbuds responds—perfectly—thanks to real-time AI translation.
Cue shock and awe.
The wow factor? Real.
The price? Unbelievably low.
A good pair of regular earbuds might cost more than this “AI magic.”
So here’s the big question:
What kind of sorcery is happening in the Chinese supply chain that they can cram in real-time AI translation and still keep the price at $9.9?
You know what they say—the proof is in the pudding, right?
So I was all set, rubbing my hands together, ready to try one of these AI translator earbuds myself.
But plot twist—turns out, none of these viral models are actually sold in China.
No worries though. After some digging on Taobao, I found a few budget-friendly alternatives.
Prices ranged from as low as 50 RMB to high-end models costing over a thousand.
Sticking to the rule of “buy smart, not expensive”, I placed the orders.
And for a fair comparison, I bought two models at different price points—one for 58 RMB, the other for 158 RMB.
Here’s the funny part:
When they arrived, I noticed one of them didn’t even mention AI at all,
and the other had the word “AI” manually slapped on with a sticker…
To be honest, at first I was just messing around—I didn’t expect much.
I mean, real-time translation for just 58 RMB?
Come on, if it were that easy, professional translators would be out of a job, right?
But then… I gave it a spin.
And guess what? It actually performed way better than expected.
Out of curiosity, I randomly pulled up a raw Japanese action movie—no subtitles, no nothing.
And just like that, the earbuds started translating it on the fly, smooth as butter…
Aside from that tiny flaw, the overall experience was actually pretty solid.
Translation delay was around 3 to 5 seconds, which is not bad at all.
Turns out, the AI and translation capabilities have nothing to do with the earbuds themselves.
It’s all powered by an app called “AI库” (AI Ku)—basically, a Chinese version of Google Translate.
Here’s how it works:
You connect the earbuds via Bluetooth, then enter a code provided by the seller into the app.
Once activated, the earbuds sync up with the software, and voilà—real-time translation enabled.
Once everything’s paired up, you get full access to all the features in the app.
And it’s not just translation—this little tool can also double as a meeting assistant and an AI helper.
But the moment I started using it, I immediately realized those viral ads were totally staged.
Here’s the truth:
If you want it to translate, you first have to select the language pair—say, English to Chinese.
Then, you need to manually hit the “record” button in the app to start capturing audio.
So those TikTok-style scenarios where someone’s casually scrolling on their phone,
a passerby throws shade in another language,
and they instantly clap back in perfect translation?
Yeah… not happening.
But when it comes to face-to-face conversations, it’s more than enough.
It supports 117 languages.
I mean, you could even choose Javanese—a language spoken by only about 7.55 million people globally—and it would still give you a perfect translation.
What really blew my mind was that it can actually do something like the “Time-Space Jar”—
One person wears one earbud, and the other wears the other, and you can have a bilingual conversation.
The earbuds will automatically translate both sides’ speech, English and Chinese, in real-time.
So, I grabbed the neighbor’s little black friend, and the two of us started chatting in broken English like it was nothing.
After a few days of using it, I have to admit—it actually works pretty well.
Because every time it makes a small mistake, you end up self-PUA-ing (mentally telling yourself):
“Well, given the price, I can deal with it.”
Real talk, what’s truly impressive here isn’t even the earbuds—it’s the software behind them.
Theoretically, as long as you’re wearing an earbud that can pick up sound and connect to the app, you too could become an advanced AI real-time translation earbud.
Anyone passing by would be like: “Whoa, that’s some next-level tech.”
So, to get to the bottom of this, I decided to use a bit of my network and contact the team behind this AI translation app.
And here’s the kicker—the cost to integrate these apps is ridiculously low.
“Our user base is already in the millions,” the boss casually drops a scary number right off the bat.
At the height of last year’s boom, their monthly active users doubled.
They weren’t keen on sharing exact figures, but when I asked if monthly active users were in the thousands range, they just smiled and said:
“Probably a bit more than that, haha.”
Turns out, I thought they were building this up over the long term, but they only launched the AI translation feature back in September last year—it’s only been about six months!
As the conversation continued, I quickly understood why they’ve been able to scale up so fast.
First off, because the market really needs it.
This might not hit home for us, but if you take a look at the comments from foreigners, you’ll see how much they need this.
Why? Because there are just so many people speaking different languages in places like the U.S..
Imagine finishing a manicure at a Vietnamese-owned nail salon, then heading to a Chinese restaurant for some wontons, while a passing grandma is chatting away in fluent Spanish…
TikTok clips are also built around these real-life, everyday needs.
And honestly, at just $9.9, even if you just buy it for fun, you’re not really losing anything.
Second, because it’s really profitable.
Once you slap the AI label on something, even a basic Bluetooth earbud can see its price shoot up fast.
It’s like the bosses don’t even need to upgrade the product itself—they just buy an activation code, and the product gets an instant “upgrade”.
I casually asked if adding $50 to the price would be too much.
The boss, in all honesty, replied:
“At the early stage, it was crazy—we could easily raise the price by several hundred dollars.”
In short, my imagination was still way too limited.
So, at this point, you’re probably wondering: how much does an activation code actually cost?
“$5 gets you six months, and $20 gets you lifetime access.
If you check in daily, you can even use your coins to extend the service.”
They quoted me a mind-blowing price.
For the price of a cup of lemon tea from Mixue, you could have their translation service for life.
And here’s the kicker:
The price is the same in both China and abroad.
That means overseas companies can pay less than a dollar to give their customers two years of free real-time translation.
Even though it’s cheaper than Mixue, with prices that have plummeted through the floor, they’re still making a profit.
The boss on the other end of the line chuckled sheepishly and said,
“Yes, at the moment, we’re still profitable.”
Exactly.
With the $9.9 AI earbuds, you might think you’re getting a steal, but in reality, the sellers think they’re the ones winning.
In the end, when you do the math, even the suppliers offering lifetime access for $20 are laughing all the way to the bank.
People say DeepSeek is so amazing because it drove prices down for everyone, but to be honest, when it comes to price cutting, the bosses from Huaqiangbei still have the upper hand.
This is the Mixue Ice Tea and Pinduoduo of the AI world—whether it’s a big model or a translation tool, just give me $5 and I’ll throw in free shipping.
Of course, you get what you pay for.
Compared to translation veterans like iFlytek or Time-Space Jar, their product definitely has room for improvement—and the boss himself isn’t denying that.
But these small earbud manufacturers aren’t even considering other options, because those are too expensive.
Partnering with translation giants like iFlytek or Baidu would cost them a fortune, and they’d have to adapt and tweak their products accordingly.
Now, for the price of a cup of lemon tea, it’s done.
To be fair, not every manufacturer is going to be able to ride the AI wave, but for most businesses, those Bluetooth earbuds gathering dust in the warehouse finally have a chance.
However, since this whole AI craze started, every supplier is jumping on the AI bandwagon.
As for how long the boss will be able to make money off this, I’m cautiously optimistic. But the boss is still pretty upbeat, saying they plan to expand into audio-video real-time translation, which they’ll probably launch soon.
So when it comes to making money, whether it’s DeepSeek or OpenAI, in front of the Huaqiangbei bosses, they all have to respectfully call them “bro”.
Source: Chaiping X.PIN
