Doppler Labs taps former Microsoft corporate devices head for COO, says Here One will ship Feb. 21

Doppler Labs is growing its executive team as it prepares to ship its first major product release. Today, the company announced that Brian Hall, former Corporate VP of Devices at Microsoft, will be joining Doppler Labs as its COO. Hall joins the smart earbud company after 20 years at Microsoft where he was most recently tasked with working on products like the Microsoft Surface, Surface Hub and HoloLens.

Doppler Labs, which was founded in 2013 and has raised a little over $50 million in funding to date, is set to release its flagship product, a pair of smart earbuds called the Here Ones, later next month. Today, Doppler Labs also confirmed that it will begin shipping pre-orders of the devices on February 21.

The headphones, which allow you to alter the way you hear the world around you, were one of the coolest things I tried in 2016. Unfortunately, shipment of the Here Ones had to be pushed back from a holiday delivery date to February due to manufacturing issues, an ailment that has plagued other smart earbuds like Bragi’s The Headphone as well as Apple’s AirPods. Doppler Labs CEO Noah Kraft told TechCrunch in November that the small startup had already received over 10,000 pre-orders for the device.

Now with delivery of the $299 noise-canceling and noise-altering earbuds on the way, the company is ready to approach a much wider audience with its dream of ear-based computing.