Details
Product: LinkBuds WF-L900
Brand: Sony
Price: £149 (at time of writing)
Features
- Open-Ring Earpeice Design
- Super-Light Weight
- Splash & Sweat Proof
- 360° Audio Capability
Personal listening equipment such as headphones and earphones are a huge part of life for so many people nowadays, with a lot of tasks involving using our devices, especially when our devices are aiding accessibility.
The Sony LinkBuds feature a strange looking design, with the centre of the earpiece missing, leaving it looking like a doughnut. This allows them to play into your ear whilst still allowing sound in from the world around. The LinkBuds are designed with everyday usage in mind, with the idea that you should be able to listen to music and take calls, whilst still being aware of the environment around you.
The LinkBuds are 360° audio enabled, meaning they can place sound at any point in a 360° circle around you. This feature means these LinkBuds would be great paired with navigational apps such as Microsoft’s Soundscape or BlindSquare, as they can use directional audio to direct you in the right direction. This coupled with the smart design that allows more ambient noise in makes for a much better experience when using some accessibility apps like this. You can also listen to certain songs and watch film with 360° audio, giving a completely different feel to the sound.
For those looking for something purely for listening to music with, I would suggest something else. The sound quality of the LinkBuds is very good, but does lack some depth with there being a lack of bass, however this is probably in part because there is no room for a subwoofer (the speaker that produces deeper bass) due to the hole cut out of the middle, and also if there were much more bass it would most likely interfere with the ambient sound entering from outside.
The LinkBuds themselves have a solid battery life, lasting 5 hours on a charge. They come with a charging case too, which if fully charged also, can give your LinkBuds up to 17 hours of battery, more than I’m sure most people would need in a day!
They may not be the cheapest option for earbuds, retailing at £149, but the features and charging case definitely make it more worth the price.
If you’d like to know more about these – or any accessibility gear for that matter – please don’t hesitate to call the Tech Team here at SSW!
A blog by Tom Hamblin – Tech Advisor at SSW.
