Hasta La Ideas

In the Details is our weekly look at one especially smart, innovative or unusual detail—or, in this case, two details—of a new design.

Urbanears’ latest set of in-ear headphones, called Kransen, has two unique features which together keep its cords tidy and readily accessible.

The first, dubbed Snap Construction, connects the two earbuds back-to-back with, you guessed it, a simple snap. The second, called Cable Loop, secures the coiled cords via some acrobatics of the plug. The innovations were developed separately, a year and a half apart and for two different brands. Only when combined in the Kransen did the solutions really shine.

The idea for Snap Construction arose three years ago during an argument between two of the Stockholm-based company’s founders. They were trying to agree upon a way to easily store earbuds during a momentary interruption in music listening—say, while talking to a grocery store cashier. Putting the headphones away is an unnecessary and time-consuming chore. Keeping them in is just rude. So where do you put them? The idea then on the table—to make one side of the earbuds extra long so it could be flung over a shoulder—was, one founder claimed, fundamentally uncool.

A children’s-store display solved the quibble—and got rid of that asymmetrical-cord idea forever. Someone at the toy store had built a pair of non-functioning headphones out of Legos. As it happens, some folks at Urbanears had done consulting work with Lego, and the display resonated. Urbanears’ design director and co-founder, Marcus Von Euler-Rudbäck, wondered, “What if you could snap [the earbuds] around your neck all day, and when someone calls, snap them off?”

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