If you’ve always wanted your headphones to stand out a little in a sea of white cables then Meizu’s light-up earbuds might be for you. Called Halo, the Bluetooth 4.1 with aptX buds feature a 1.5-meter cable (including 0.3m to wrap around your ears) that lights up and flashes in bright neon red or blue for an average of five hours of use (at 50 percent brightness). Otherwise, they’ll last for 15 hours if you switch the lighting off. The rechargeable battery, located at the end of the cable, takes about 1.5 hours to charge.
Halo uses a light-diffusing fiber from Corning called Fibrance, which is made from flexible glass that can be bent and curved. These Meizu earphones aren’t the first with an illuminating cable built around Fibrance; Glow also has a pair that lights up in red, green, or blue for $139.
Halo has a sliding control switch that allows you to turn the lights on and off, and also buttons for volume control, Bluetooth pairing, and call functions. The earphones also sync with a smartphone app that lets you control things like brightness and lighting modes. The Halo comes with a carrying case, several different sizes of earbud tips to try, and a charging cable.
The earphones are available for 999 yuan (around $158), and they go on sale at the end of April in red or blue. There’s no word yet on if they’ll be available in the US or other markets outside of China.