Freshly washed headphones are awesome
by Volker Weber
Urbanears is one of those companies that delight me with clever new products. A few month ago I found the Kransen headset which has been in my bag ever since. Now they have a new product: Humlan. And it's washable!
No, not the whole headset, but the headband and the cushions. The things that get yucky over the years. Urbanears includes a washing bag. You unfasten the headband and take off the cushions, drop them in the bag and wash them in cold water. Once they are dry you put them back together and you have a fresh headset. It never occurred to me that was a feature, but now it seems absolutely logical and necessary.
And there is another clever feature. The right ear cap has a socket where you can daisy-chain another headset. Plug in your friend's headset and you are listening to the same music.
It certainly looks very cool, avoiding the oversized cans design. And at the same time it's not one of these boring designs made by mass market electronics companies. How does it sound? I would say "decent" and miles above the earbuds that came with your smartphones. I played them a couple of hours on Nokia MixRadio and was very satisfied.
The cable comes with a built-in microphone and remote. You can pick up calls, start/stop or fast forward or rewind your music. It works both with my Lumias and iDevices. No volume buttons though. Same cable as the Kransen headset but not the same plug.
Comments
Oh, the daisy-chain is very clever. Nice thinking!
