How thrilling it should be to confidently declare your organization’s newest product to be a “world’s first.” How engaging to your potential clients, the promise of “endless playtime.” Let’s face it: If you possibly can’t pique a little bit of curiosity this fashion, nicely, shoppers should be much more jaded than everybody suspected. But although you could assume you’ve seen all of it earlier than, be assured that you just haven’t … or, at the least, you haven’t seen this explicit variation on a theme. 

When I reviewed the Urbanista Los Angeles wi-fi over-ear headphones simply over a 12 months in the past, they (like just about each product that finally ends up on these pages) had their professionals and cons. High on the listing of “pros” was their exceptional Powerfoyle-assisted charging system. This photo voltaic cell materials, the product of an organization known as Exeger, covers the skin of the scarf and may draw energy from each photo voltaic and ambient gentle. Which means the Los Angeles headphones not often, if ever, want charging by way of mains energy.

So, by means of an encore, Urbanista has managed to include the know-how right into a pair of true wi-fi in-ear headphones. They’re known as Phoenix (as a result of each Urbanista product is known as after a locale of lesser or larger resonance), WIRED obtained to attempt them earlier than anybody else, and so they’re unarguably a world’s first. They may even be capable to offer you limitless playtime.

Of course, there’s loads in regards to the Urbanista Phoenix that’s emphatically not a world’s first. They’re completely commonplace in some ways, actually. The earbuds themselves are a barely chunky 30 x 26 mm model of the “dangly stem” design popularized by Apple and shamelessly appropriated by quite a few manufacturers ever since. The faintly bulbous enterprise finish has area for a 10-mm dynamic driver, whereas the stem itself carries some branding and contains a capacitive floor that permits some contact management.

An IPX4 ranking in opposition to moisture is par for the course. Bluetooth 5.2 multipoint connectivity is superior, however compatibility with simply SBC and AAC codecs most definitely isn’t. Active noise cancellation is all the time welcome (so long as it’s efficient), and eight hours’ price of energy saved within the earbuds is half-decent, too. Add in a management app with quite a few EQ presets and noise-cancellation adjustment, and a few selections of end (Midnight Black or Desert Rose), and to this point the Urbanista Phoenix are aggressive with most price-comparable rivals. But they’re hardly a “world’s first”–fashion revelation.

All About the Case

The charging case, although, is the place the numerous motion is. At 90 x 68 x 20 mm (the lattermost tapering to fifteen mm) and 72 grams (80 grams with the earbuds inside), it’s significantly greater and somewhat heavier than the prevailing norm, despite the fact that with 24 hours of energy on board it doesn’t reveal considerably higher stamina than any variety of price-comparable rivals. What its dimensions imply, although, is that there’s a good bit of area on one in all its faces for an space of that Exeger Powerfoyle.

Although there’s clearly not as a lot of the photo voltaic cell materials on the charging case for a pair of true wi-fi in-ear headphones as there may be on the skin of the scarf of the previous over-ear mannequin, the impact is not any much less spectacular. Yes, the Phoenix headphones take longer within the solar (or underneath a supply of ambient gentle) to totally cost than their siblings, however absolutely cost they are going to. If you discover you ever want to make use of the USB-C socket on the case to cost them, nicely, it should be since you’ve moved into a type of coal mines which are instantly all the trend once more. 

There’s simply no arguing with the efficacy of the Powerfoyle materials. It’s as worthwhile right here as it’s as a part of the Urbanista Los Angeles expertise.