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Earbuds are certainly fun and useful. In our iPod society, the sight of folks tuned into their “tuneage” with the little buds tucked into each ear, is a common one. But let's also face the fact that they might not be the safest devices in all situations—for example, when listening as you walk or jog at nighttime. The combination of a “tuned-out” listener, who may be unaware of approaching cars or other dangers, and darkness could be a deadly one.
To help eliminate this danger (and jazz up what's typically a pretty commonplace, generic product), Elexa Consumer Products has introduced the iBlink, earbuds with built-in LED lights. The lights, which go off in time to the music, are intended to make users visible in darkness, but they're also a cool feature. Both buds light up, along with the main unit with the device's on-off switch. The lights are small, so it's questionable how visible they'd be in the dark from a distance, but they do work well and have good sensitivity to audio dynamics.
The product was certainly developed with user friendliness in mind. It charges easily by hooking up (via USB) to your computer. A clip on the cable helps the unit stay affixed to you as you move through life's hustle and bustle. And iBlink comes with three sets of different-sized ear gels so you can set up the buds for maximum comfort. I appreciated this—as I'm not much of a fan of earbuds, usually finding them uncomfortable, but with the smallest gels in place I found these about as comfortable as I've ever known earbuds to be.
Soundwise, iBlink are impressive for their small size. Billed as noise-isolation earphones, they naturally won't give you the same noise cancellation that ear-enclosing full-sized headphones would, but they deliver good sound and powerful volume levels, even in noisy environments like trains or even airplanes (I've tried them in both settings). Bass response is strong. Powering on the unit makes the LED lights work, but it doesn't seem to affect the sound as far as I could tell, so you don't need to keep them constantly charged for good audio quality—the charge is for the light show, which is a nice feature in a product that delivers big sound from a small package. Available at www.myiblinkusa.com, $29.99 SRP.
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