By Dustin Darnall
Vissles is not just a Bluetooth speaker, it’s also a pair of earbuds. It gives you the option of wireless audio experience that’s both private and public and Apple World Today received an advanced copy to review.
The audio quality is good (and I’m a bit of a snob about this). I’ve been using Jabra Elite 65T as my work headphones, which are about as good as it gets. The Vissles come about as close as possible to the Jabra headphones. The call quality is great.
They pair easily and reconnect quickly when they are removed from the case. There are no physical buttons on them, a feature I really like. To control them (answer calls, pause music, change volume, etc) there is a metallic ring that you just touch (not press)with your finger.
Touching the ring grounds the headphones, which it interprets as a button touch. This is a great feature because some headphones I’ve used with physical buttons you had to press could jam uncomfortably into your ear each time you push the button. Because the Vissels require a touch, not a push, it does not jam in your ear when you’re using the controls.
As for the Bluetooth speaker, the directions on the review unit were written in broken English, so it was a challenge to figure out how it works. For example, the directions were missing one small, but very important, instruction.
There is a thin, transparent film on part of the headphones that must be removed for the speaker to work. Because the film is small and transparent, it took a while for me to determine the problem. The film protects the metallic connections prior to first use.
Once I determined the problem, everything worked great. The speaker is simple to use. Just pair the headphones, put them in the case, and close the case. The speaker sounds surprisingly good, as well. Due to the small size (95 gram), I expected a “small” sound, but I was happily wrong about this. It can get really loud. Plus, you get up to four hours of playtime on a charge.
The Vissel concept of combining Bluetooth headphones with a Bluetooth speaker is a novel concept that I find very nice.
Pricing and availability will be announced at the time of launch this month. You can sign up on the Vissles website to be notified when the product is available.
Apple World Today Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★ (maybe ★★★★ if/when the glitchy instructions are fixed)
