With Fox News and even Republican leaders acknowledging that Vice President Kamala Harris won Tuesday night’s presidential debate, some supporters of former President Donald Trump are desperately seeking a modicum of solace: the predictable conspiracy theories.
Over the past decade or so, a common theme among conservatives (but oddly enough, not Democrats) has been that their candidates’ opponents wore earphones during debates. This baseless accusation was hurled at President Joe Biden in 2020, Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Barack Obama in 2012. Each time, the theory was debunked.
In Harris’ case, conspiracy theorists on X and other social media platforms claimed her earrings had built-in ear pieces. These sore losers, searching for ear pieces that resemble pearl studs, claimed Harris was using Nova H1 Audio Earrings.
The earrings are said to have directional sound that can only be heard by the wearer. According to the Kickstarter page, the earrings “wear on your earlobe and emit sound from the pearl inside directly into your ear canal.” Sure, they look a bit like the pearl earrings Harris wore on stage, but they’re not the same. Style bloggers have already identified the Tiffany & Co. earrings Harris wore at the debate and previous events (and noted that she also wore a chain from the same collection).
The main problem is that Nova H1 audio earrings are almost non-existent.
As Newsweek noted, the device was part of a Kickstarter project that has since vanished. The earrings are not available for purchase anywhere online and have never been available for purchase. Nova Products, the company behind the campaign, has not logged into Kickstarter since May 2023, and backers have posted to the page asking for a status update on the earrings they were supposed to receive in exchange for their pledges.
The URL for Nova Products’ Kickstarter website now redirects to that of another company, Icebach Sound Solutions. The website features a different design for the audio earrings, and according to a cache on The Wayback Machine, a message was added to the site after the debate between 7am and 11:25am ET saying “Presidential Debate Special Edition – Available Soon to Everyone.” This tongue-in-cheek claim appears to have been added with a link to the CES 2025 website.
Eisbach Sound Solutions
Both the Icebach and Nova websites list Stephan Berendsen of BBG Entertainment GmbH as the domain registrar, which appears to be a Germany-based mobile game developer. What such a company has to do with audio products and the US presidential election remains a mystery, but we have reached out to BBG and the Harris campaign for comment.
“We don’t know if Mrs. Harris wore our products. The similarities are striking, and although our products were not specifically developed for use at a presidential debate, they would still be suitable,” Malte Iversen, managing director of Eisbach Sound Solutions, told Engadget in a statement. We’re guessing this is a sudden, but unusual, publicity stunt. “To give both candidates a level playing field, we are currently developing a men’s version, which will be available to the Trump campaign soon. However, the color choice is a bit tricky, as orange doesn’t pair well with many colors.”
Either way, this seems like an easy case of Occam’s razor: Harris was almost certainly not wearing an earpiece, since the earrings she was wearing look noticeably different and the product she was allegedly wearing does not exist. Similarly, a veteran politician who is highly prepared and ready to upset an opponent with a notoriously weak ego is more likely to win a debate without needing a team of people delivering information through an earpiece.
The Nova H1 audio earrings show all the typical signs of being vaporware, having been shown off for the first time at CES 2023, but we’ll probably see a new version under a different branding somewhere on the show floor in January.
