Not only will you listen to your headphones, future headphones will listen to you. And they will respond with a surprising range of information. Beyond the latest playlists, wireless headphones with sensor-enhanced artificial intelligence will hear you better, help you manage your home and even act as your personal trainer. "The use case for headphones goes beyond audio," says Ben Arnold, a consumer technology analyst at NPD Group. He says sensor-enhanced headphones are called hearables, a new category of headphones that do more than just stream music. Hearables focus on several key features: Advanced audio technologies that actively listen for human voices and cancel outside noise, devices that more deeply integrate digital assistants, and health-and-fitness-centric devices that monitor and give user feedback.

The Bragi Dash combines AI with sensors to provide user feedback. Handout: Bragi

Telling users more about themselves is one key to taking headphones beyond the era of the audio-first focus. German start-up Bragi — which first launched through a 2014 Kickstarter campaign and had some fits and starts on the way to gaining traction in the headphone market — recently released the Dash Pro, completely wire-free headphones with sensors that measure everything from heart rate to distance, step count and breaths. "If you're using just a microphone, it's just one range of understanding," said founder and CEO Nikolaj Hviid. "If you were only capable of listening, you couldn't smell, you couldn't see, you couldn't taste. How much of the world would you understand?" Giving users more control over their environment is another aim of companies following Bragi into the hearables market.

We're at the beginning of something that will become the norm. Matt Ahumada head of marketing at smart headphone maker LifeBeam