It’s a first-world problem to be sure, but that doesn’t make tangled headphone cords any less annoying. Wrapping them around your iDevice helps, but you’ll probably do it too tight and end up breaking the cables. And those reel-em-in hand-cranked spindles so beloved of Sony in the 1990s have disappeared, probably because they’re too much hassle, or just kept getting lost.
Bluetooth promised to be the answer, but still sounds awful and requires recharging one more gadget. So Quirky’s new Wired tangle-free earbuds have got a lot to prove. Can they do it?
Like all of Quirky’s crowd-sourced products, the Wired ‘buds are clever indeed. The cable consists of thick, stiff sections and thinner, bendy parts which act as joints. As they can only bend at regularly-spaced intervals, it is almost impossible to tangle them. In fact, as their natural inclination is to fold neatly, and they have their own built-in rubber strap to keep them bundled, its easier to keep them tidy than it is to mess things up.
An inline remote/mic and reinforced joints at the jack and earbud ends round things out.
Want some? You’ll have to wait awhile. Quirky works by honing its designs, then taking pre-orders, and then — finally — cranking up the production lines. Then again, you may as well just go ahead and name the price you’d be willing to pay. It’s not like you’ll never be needing new earbuds again in the future.
[Via The Giz]
