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Urbanista Los Angeles Solar Powered Headphones Outshine the Competition

11.29.21 | By
Urbanista Los Angeles Solar Powered Headphones Outshine the Competition

It’s a great time in portable audio, as the headphone market is saturated with an abundance of well-designed options, most equipped with similar specs and styling. Swedish audio brand Urbanista has found an intriguing way to stand apart from the crowd with their sunny-themed Los Angeles solar powered headphones, one catering to those listeners who regularly commute/walk around wearing a pair of cans – headphones literally powered by its sunny disposition.

Black headphones set onto a rock with a sandy background.

A majority of the Los Angeles’ headphone headband is sheathed with a sheet of Exeger Powerfoyle, a flexible photovoltaic material engineered to mimic the same photosynthetic process plants use to convert sunlight into energy. Where your monstera turns sunlight into big green leaves, Powerfoyle uses the same source to perpetually power up an 80h battery reserve, as long as there’s light/sunlight available. This feature alone makes these headphones a unique proposition for those who regularly don headphones any time them step outside the door (and live in a sunny climate).

Black headphones set onto a rock with a sandy background, with iPhone app displaying headphone's battery level.

While the solar charging capabilities stand out as the headphone’s unique feature, the Urbanista also includes hybrid active noise cancellation to block out ambient sounds, with on-ear detection to preserve battery life of these Bluetooth 5.0 wireless cans. Siri and Google Voice Assistant are also supported, as is par for the course Android and iOS app compatibility, permitting users to view how much light is being converted into energy and tweak ANC and ambient sound controls.

Three-quarter angled view of black headphones.

Three-quarter angled view of black headphones from top.

While nowhere as insignificant as the mesh+frame design of the Apple’s AirPods Max, the Los Angeles headphone’s solar material is thin and flexible, resulting in a comfortable padded headband that nobody will suspect is perpetually harnessing light into power.

Angled top view of black headphones solar headband.

The Urbanista Los Angeles is available in both a Midnight Black and Sand Gold styling/finish, a promising holiday gift idea for someone you know who loves their music…but has a tendency to forget to charge their wireless battery-powered devices.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.