Look mom, no app: these premium headphones throw the logic of your Sonys or Boses out the window in favor of a 'Still Mode' to stay calm, and I’m all for it

• Daisy One: new headphones from a new brand — and they're not cheap
• No app, heavier than average build, smaller drivers…
• …but I truly think the dedicated on-ear 'Still Mode' button could be a winner

You’ve never heard of Daisy (the Californian tech company; you may have heard of the flower) but it wants you to hear of it. Or hear it…’s debut over-ear headphones, which are called the Daisy One.

These new cans retail at the not-insignificant price point of $399 / £364 (about AU$700), money which could, it's important to say, be buying you some Sony or Bose cans. So why buy these instead? Refreshingly, rather than play the heavy-hitters at their own game, Daisy's throwing out the rule book on how to convince you.

Take the cans’ audio chops; instead of using the same 40mm drivers that almost everyone opts for, Daisy’s gone for a 35mm option, tuned by former Harman engineers and weighted towards the low-end. That’s pretty uncommon in pricier wireless models, where neutral sound is the typically the goal.

Then there’s the design: it’s heavier than average, at 318g, and uses a more slender, metallic look than your average over-ears and comes in silver, dark green or blue (no traditional 'charcoal' option here).

Perhaps the biggest selling point — something many brands (and reviewers) could consider a minus — is the lack of an app. Instead, controls are done on the headphone, with a dial for volume controls and play/pause, and a dedicated button that plays soundscapes recorded from around California. And what a dial/button it is! It puts me in mind of Montblanc's bijou earbuds or indeed the tip of a Montblanc pen.

What this button offers is called the 'Still Mode', and it includes access to rainfall sounds, five-minute breathwork tracks, ocean tides and more, but from the headphones themselves — ie. without the need to open an app or keep your phone connected to its source device.

There is a noise cancellation listed on the spec sheet too, but perhaps Daisy knows it can't beat the class-leaders at that game. Where most flagship cans want to give you silence with ever-improved ANC algorithms, Daisy is pushing a different route straight to the desired effect of said silence: a calmer mind — and one that is better able to focus.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

By turning traditional headphone flaws (see the lack of an app and a slightly smaller driver) into selling points, Daisy makes it clear that it’s trying something different.

It’s not clear if that’s by design, or by accident. In an interview with Wired, company CEO Jack Mulroe confirmed the designers were “from outside the audio industry”. So the brand brings some fresh perspectives, but potentially some shortcomings — Mulroe admits “I tweaked out on transparency for months” when trying to fix its issues.

In recent years, we’ve seen that headphone fans will welcome in new brands, perhaps more so than in other tech sectors. The likes of the CMF Headphone Pro, Nothing Headphone (a) and Soundcore Space 2 have proven popular (at least, I’ve seen people out and about wearing them) and you can see from the very end of the next train carriage that they’re not from the traditional Sony, Bose or Sennheiser roster.

We've seen other headphone startups try to help wearers stay calm and focus, albeit using very different tech. Take Neurable's 'brain-hacking' headphones, which monitor your brain activity while you wear them and thus aim to help you achieve a flow state. But Daisy's this approach is different again, and it does strike me that by taking a more hands-off approach (and leaving our gray matter alone) Daisy's approach perhaps sounds more conducive to calmness…

Ultimately, it’s always good to see a new brands step up to the plate, especially if it thinks it can do things differently to the big dogs. It’ll be very interesting to see what impact the Daisy One has, and where the company goes from here.