

Crowdfunding to Solve Apple's Biggest Product Problem... Tangled Headphones - whoisjg
http://www.fundable.com/flux-headphones

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victork2
What about the quality of the headphones?

For me that's the main problem of Apple headphones: they are utter crap in
terms of sound quality.

Another problem I could see: you add weight to the chord which will make the
headphones more likely to fall from the ear, that's a big deal if you do
sports with it.

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fluxxy
These headphones are the standard issue Apple headphones but we could release
a higher quality headphone with the same magnetic cord. As for the weight, the
magnets are so small they make it only slightly heavier, about the weight of a
quarter. From our testing there is not much difference. The magnets secure the
split cable under your chin so they stay in place while running.

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jessriedel
How much does the just the headphone cord weigh (i.e. without the ear buds or
the jack)? I would guess it's less than a quarter, so that you're more than
doubling the cord weight, but I don't know. It's the proportional change in
cord weight which is important.

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halostatue
I haven't had tangled headphones since I started using a cord-wrapping
technique I found on LifeHacker years ago, as shown in this video
<[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IImQNcIyf18>](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IImQNcIyf18>).

I'm not sure that I'd want to buy custom earbuds just for this particular
feature. As jsherry suggested, this is something that (IMO) would be better
licensed to name-brand headphone manufacturers.

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jsherry
If you can secure the patent, sounds like licensing might be the way to go
here. Competing on the quality of the headphone is an entirely different (and
expensive) problem, crowded with a ton of established companies. And if the
headphones you produce aren't of decent quality, my hunch is that people won't
buy them b/c sound is going to trump the inconvenience of tangled wires.

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fluxxy
They are currently patent-pending. We are working with a manufacturer who
already produce headphones. They make a range of models from cheap, average
quality headphones to expensive high quality models. We can incorporate this
design into all of them.

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antihero
Yeah but are they Sennheisers? Are they Koss Porta-Pros? Are they as
attractive as Skullcandies? People take their choice in headphones very
seriously and for many reasons other this magnet thing. I'd buy this if it
sold as a kit that I could mod my existing cans with, but I'm not going to
switch headphone brand just to have slightlier easier cables.

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rayyy
These will likely be prohibitively expensive given the cost of materials.
Considering that the headphones cost $29 and that each magnet (in bulk) costs
$0.90, you're looking at headphones that cost $99.20 to produce in materials
alone. After labor, fixed costs, and profit, you're looking at a very
expensive pair of headphones with bad sound quality.

This is a cool idea but the price of rare-earth metals might be its undoing.

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fluxxy
You are right, magnets are expensive. However, we have already found suppliers
and the cost of the headphones will be $49.95.

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rayyy
Cool! It's good that you found a cheaper supplier.

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nutjob123
Not sure how well this will work when someone wraps their old hard drive based
iPod (or brand new iPod classic) and wipes some bits on the drive...

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fluxxy
That is a good point. We do not recommend using these with those models as the
magnets would cause problems.

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jessriedel
Other commenters here seem to think that they wouldn't be a problem. I would
find out definitively and say one way or the other on your product page. Geeks
will worry about it.

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fluxxy
The only models in question would be the hard drive based models. There will
be no problems with the iPhone, iPad, iPod nano or shuffle. The iPad case uses
these same magnets.

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brittohalloran
Looks like it works well if you wrap them right away, but I can envision it
being worse than no magnets if you just toss them in your bag.

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fluxxy
They do a very good job staying how you place them. If you didn't wrap them
and threw them into a bag you will have problems but if you neatly wrap it
before you toss them into a bag they will stay nice and neat.

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MatthewPhillips
I'm confused about the Compatibility section. Do these headphones not work in
non-Apple devices? If so, why? I wasn't aware that there were proprietary
specs for headphones. I use the standard Apple headphones in other devices all
of the time without issue. What is different about this product?

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fluxxy
The headphones will work in non-Apple devices. The compatibility is for the
attached mic/remote. The microphone will most likely work in other devices but
the remote probably will not.

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baldingboy
I can attest to this, the headphones will work for any device but remote and
mic are only compatible with apple products

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X-Istence
Am I the only one that can use the Apple provided slider, slide it to the top,
then wrap my headphones neatly and put them into a pocket in my bag and have
them come out the same way they went in?

I haven't had issues with tangled headphones for years now...

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roc
Once someone pointed me to the Better Way to wrap headphones [1] I also
haven't had a problem with tangles.

Though Apple increased the stiffness of the stock earbud cords at some point,
so using this method (IME) can cause the cords to spiral and twist in weird
ways. The extra weight of some magnets might well hold down that problem. [2]

[1] <http://vimeo.com/223505>

[2] puntacular

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prophetjohn
This just isn't a big enough issue for me to move away from high quality
sound.

ps: it's pretty sweet how this problem belongs to Apple. If headphones are
Apple's biggest product problem, it's because their headphones suck, not
because the cords get tangled.

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fluxxy
We could easily introduce a high quality version. It sounds like that is what
you guys want, so that is what we will do!

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wilschroter
Until wireless earbuds show up, this is my solution.

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antihero
It's quite irritating that this doesn't exist yet. I'd even be okay with two
wireless ear-clip headphones or something.

I had a pair of these:

[http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&safe=off&...](http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&safe=off&q=nokia+bluetooth+headset&aq=&aqi=&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1920&bih=915&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=1640624337330993420&sa=X&ei=ocfpT-27JsTc8gO3grjMDQ&ved=0CIMBEPMCMAA)

But the headband was too heavy to do any running or anything in :(

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xd
Great idea but I can see this hitting ebay from copycats before these guys
even get into production.

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Void_
Apple's biggest problem, right.

