Adaptability for the win

One of the challenges for a company dedicated to delivering the best quality products and user experiences for all its consumers is that it’s not practical or sustainable to make unique products to suit every individual use case. The EPOS team addresses this challenge head on by designing adaptable products that maximize their flexibility for a wide variety of use cases, while ensuring we supply products that fulfil gamers’ demands for the highest performance.

Looking at the big picture, we ensure our product portfolio covers a wide range of platforms and customer needs. But instead of one product per platform or customer type, we always aim for flexibility where it is useful. For example, our engineers and designers can make a single wireless headset design work well for both PC and PlayStation owners. The same wireless dongle can be plugged into either so gamers can gain the benefits of EPOS technology’s lower latency while enjoying surround sound via their headset on both platforms.

The principle of flexibility where it matters to the gamer extends to the finer details of all the products we design. For example, the GSP 670 when connected to your PC or PlayStation via the supplied dongle offers a competitive, low latency edge for gamers. But heavy gamers often need to take phone calls while they’re playing, so simultaneously the headset will pair with your phone via standard Bluetooth and interrupt your game audio if you answer an incoming call. It’ll even pair with both your work phone and personal phone – at the same time.

At EPOS we don’t follow a rigid playbook when we design products for users with radically different habits and needs – so where there is a clear difference in use cases, we use different approaches. For example, the GSP 670 and 370 are both headsets designed for use by gamers who want high performance but with the freedom of a wireless solution. But that is where the similarity ends.

The GSP 370 was designed as a “cut the wire” version of the tried and tested GSP 300 series wired headset – just as simple in operation, and with the closest performance to a wired headset that could possibly be achieved. This was the clear design brief: to provide a headset with a custom wireless connection that had such low latency it sounded like using a wired headset – and with a 100 hours battery life that would allow gamers used to wired headphones to forget about having to recharge it constantly.

The resulting headset is deceptively simple because it achieved its design goals so well. As far as gamers are concerned, it’s just a GSP 300 with no wire! But the engineering that went into it? Far from simple! The audio chipset was carefully selected to allow the lowest possible latency between dongle and headset. This level of performance can lead to faster battery drain in the headset, but the engineering team managed to achieve exceptional battery performance at the same time. It demonstrates the adaptable design and engineering thought processes we apply to all problems.

The GSP 670, on the other hand, was designed to offer the ultimate flexibility for the no-compromise gamer – low latency use with a dedicated dongle, but also the ability to pair over Bluetooth with your phone. It adds considerable functionality, with dedicated voice level dial and noise reduction. This is not simply a “cut-the-wire” version of the 600 series and our engineers approached the challenges in a very different way from the GSP 370 to meet the needs of different users.

An adaptable design mindset means the engineering team can provide high quality, perfectly targeted products for multiple use cases – and where possible offer great flexibility to the gamer. We work hard to deliver premium audio equipment for every gamer – however you like to play.