Somewhere in a quiet nook of Urbanista’s Stockholm HQ, there’s a listing of emergency place-names. Since its inception in 2010, the corporate has been on a type of digital world tour, naming every of its merchandise after a location of lesser or higher resonance.

But there’s a finite checklist of evocative toponyms on this planet, isn’t there? How lengthy earlier than we’re provided the Urbanista Chongqing? Or the Urbanista Slough?

Right now, although, Urbanista is but to exhaust the world’s provide of poignant place-names. And so right here’s the Malibu wi-fi speaker, accessible in a most un-Malibu-like selection of black or grey finishes.

In some ways, the Malibu is a wi-fi speaker like all of the others—however, as with the corporate’s Phoenix and Los Angeles wi-fi headphones, there’s a degree of distinction right here. The high of the speaker is nearly totally made up of Exeger’s Powerfoyle photo voltaic cell materials, which implies the Malibu, like its headphone siblings, can harvest the ability of sunshine, whether or not pure or electrical, to contribute to the lifetime of its 3,600-mA battery.

It’s not fairly a USP—fringe manufacturers Abfoce and Cyboris have solar-powered audio system of their lineups, too. But these manufacturers don’t have the hard-won credibility of Urbanista, and so they don’t boast the extraordinary effectivity of Powerfoyle both.

Left to its personal gadgets, the Malibu’s battery is nice for round 30 hours of playback. That’s so long as you’re listening at average quantity, anyway. The type of digital audio file dimension you’re streaming isn’t an element, because the Urbanista is barely suitable with the bog-standard, low-energy SBC and AAC codecs.

But with gentle shining on its Powerfoyle floor, the Malibu can prolong its playtime handily. We’re not speaking about an Urbanista Los Angeles–fashion state of affairs right here, you perceive; these headphones can really achieve energy, whilst they’re taking part in. But Urbanista means that even some reasonably sunny days whereas the Malibu is doing its factor can prolong that battery life from 30 hours to one thing nearer to 45 hours. And free vitality just isn’t one thing to be sniffed at.

Solar Sounds

“Moderately sunny” is a relative time period, in fact. During the course of my time with the Urbanista, it was charged by a mix of inner gentle and the pathetically watery glimmers of a wet British October that was even grayer than the Malibu’s Desert Gray end. And even then, it was in a position to play for almost 40 hours earlier than I had recourse to mains energy.

I can solely think about how lengthy it could go for throughout a Malibu summer time—indefinitely, presumably. Either method, the speaker’s IP67 score ought to imply it’s in a position to rise up nicely to those extremes.

As is normal Urbanista apply, the Malibu is flawlessly constructed and completed from a choice of supplies that mix tactility with robustness. Apart from the Powerfoyle, the Urbanista is produced from a mix of robust plastic and a amount of acoustic fabric.