Vinci smart headphones have a friggin' screen on them
LAS VEGAS -- The idea behind the Vinci headphones, it appears, was to cram all the technologies available to mankind into them, even those that you don't really expect from headphones. Besides being untethered to a music source, they listen to your voice, cancel outside noise, track fitness, charge wirelessly and, yes, they have a touchscreen on one of the earpads.
We found the Vinci, which come from a very successful Kickstarter campaign that started in Nov. 2016, at ShowStoppers, a smaller event accompanying CES.
The Vinci are quite an insane product, but they're not quite there yet. The prototype I saw at CES is version 1.0, and it didn't have several of the features listed above, including noise cancelling.
But they are functional, if a little flimsy (company reps tell me they are different in many ways from the finished product, which will ship to Kickstarter backers in March). You put them on you head and control the loudness by swiping your finger on the touchscreen up or down; to change track, swipe to the sides.
Why do you need a screen on your headphones? We're not sure. When you listen to music, people around you (but obviously not you) can see some info about the track and a little visualization of the music. At least you don't have to explain what type of music you like when asked on the subway.
The sound was OK; a bit too bassy but quite clear in the noisy environment I tried them in. And despite all the tech that's crammed into them, the Vinci headphones weren't too heavy on my head.
The best thing about them is their ability to play music without being connected to a music source; with 16/32GB of storage (depending on the model), you can load your music onto them and forget about your phone. If you do connect them to a source, you can do it wirelessly or via a regular headphone jack.
What makes the Vinci even more amazing (a bit too amazing, if you're the skeptical type), is their price. The regular model costed Kickstarter backers $99, while the Pro model cost $149. Company reps tell me these are promotional prices; they will be significantly higher when they launch for everyone.
That won't happen for a while, though. The company plans another crowdsourcing campaign this year, on Indiegogo, with a wider launch being some time away.
The Vinci are an interesting, cheap pair of headphones in a crowded space, but to get a real feel for them I'd have to see the finished product. There's a lot to like about them, but with so many features, there's a lot that can go wrong, too.
Topics CES
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
