If you’ve been into smartphones for a while, you’ve
probably heard of Anker. It’s a company that provides a wide array of phone
accessories, from car chargers to protectors, stands, and even quality cables.
It has also dipped its toes in portable audio in the past but now it seems to
be going all out.
Anker has provided a business incubator for a
startup called Zolo, which will be focusing on smart, wireless headphones —
wearables, which the company endearingly calls “hearables”. The first product
to come out from Zolo is the Liberty+ — a set of wireless earbuds that promises
to deliver a lot to its customers.
The Liberty+ is a pioneer in a few different
aspects. It’s the first wireless headphone setup that utilizes Bluetooth 5 and
Zolo promises near-unbreakable connectivity. Why? Because a Liberty+ earbud’s
entire framework works as a Bluetooth antenna.
It also has the world’s first graphene-covered
drivers in a headphone. Graphene is a super-tough material, an allotrope of
carbon, which many believe may be heavily involved in the future of tech — from
bendable phones to night-vision contact lenses. Zolo promises that it also
enhances the sound and while we can’t testify to that yet, we can see how these
earbuds would be able to take a beating — graphene is about 100 times tougher
than the strongest steel. The headphones also won't get damaged by rain or
sweat thanks to their IPX5-rated water-resistance.
To make sure that no user will be left out of the
party, Zolo has included support for all major smart assistants out there —
Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Amazon Alexa. The idea is to be able to
speak to your assistant of choice without feeling like you are losing out by
not going for a proprietary set of wireless headphones.
In-ear headphones are not for everybody as they tend
to not play well with all ear shapes. To try and offset this, Zolo made the
Liberty+’s tips out of liquid-silicon, which is said to be softer and more
adaptable than your regular earbud heads. The individual earphones are also
built via a patented GripFit technology, which is supposed to keep them locked
in place, no matter the intensity of your activity.
And while on the topic of activity — we all know the
perils of blasting music over headphones when out and about in the city. If you
need to listen to the outside world for a while, you don’t need to remove your
Liberty+ — just activate the special transparency mode, which will use the
earbuds’ microphones to relay outside audio to you.
As for battery life, the earphones can hold out for
3.5 hours of non-stop playback. However, their battery case is able to extend
that to a full 48 hours. Zolo plans to launch other products in the future —
more headphones and speakers in tow. For now, the Liberty+ is offered at US$ 99 in
either black or white for early backers over at Kickstarter. Shipments will
begin in October of this year and the retail price is going to be US$ 149.