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Super Speedy Review
Feb 2020 UPDATE
These Zungle Sunglasses combine bone conducting earphones and polarized sunglasses into one unit. The earphones part of it conducts music through your head via the arms of the sunglasses to give you about 4 hours of music playback.
Like all bone conducting headphones these come with a ‘bass and volume’ tradeoff that you get with this type of technology, but that tradeoff comes with a huge safety advantage of being able to hear all that’s around you on the trails and crossing roads and even chatting with friends.
Sadly the company is getting a significant amount of complaints online that they don’t seem to be handling, and the build quality of the sunglasses and the charger is questionable. Given the price I would suggest getting a pair of well built Sunski Sunglasses instead and a pair of Aftershokz and save yourself $10.
Full In Depth Review
I’ll never forget as a teenager my cool electric guitar teacher showing me how to play with the electric guitar not plugged in. By holding the headstock against the wall he could massively amplify the tiny vibrations the strings were making and you could clearly hear the guitar despite it not being plugged into an amplifier.
Bone conduction headphones run on a similar principle to the electric guitar phenomena and aren’t a new idea. I’ve seen military applications for these for years, but what is new is that Zungle have combined the bone conducting style of headphones with a pair of sunglasses but the overall result is rather disappointing.
Bone Conduction – How Does it Work ?
Normally sound travels through the air and the vibrations hit your ear drum and your ears and brain convert this into your favourite band. Bone Conduction Earphones act as your ear drum for you and these devices decode sound waves and convert them into vibrations that can be received directly by the Cochlea so the eardrum is never involved. The “sound” reaches the ears as vibrations through the bones (or skull) and skin. This is actually how you hear your own voice and why you say ‘ I don’t sound like that’ when you hear your own recorded voice.
Downsides of Bone Conduction
So here is the thing. All bone conduction type earphones will have less volume and less bass than you are used to with standard headphones. If you like ‘super phat’ bass tunes and loud ‘banging beats’ you will need to readjust your expectations with any bone conducting equipment you use. The Zungle ones are pretty quiet, and if you use them on a busy noisy street you will hear almost nothing.
Comfort and Fit
The arms of the sunglasses have the batteries and ‘electronics’ mainly near the back part of the arms by the ears. These sunglasses do not feel heavy or cumbersome and when wearing and in fact its easy to forget these are anything other than just normal sunglasses. They fit well and the bone conduction bits make good contact with my skull.
Charging
The rear part of the arms has two little connectors for charging up. The sunglasses come with the charging cable too. It only takes about an hour to get a full charge and then the sunglasses are good for about 4 hours of continuous use. I love that the ZUNGLE logo on the arms lights up when charging too, its a small thing but it really made me smile,but after a few weeks of use ( and a total of about 10 charges) I couldn’t get the charger to work anymore.
Button Controls and Voice Control
There are small button controls on the arms for activating the sunglasses. There are two power on buttons and then a + and – toggle on each side, one for volume up and down and one for track fwd and back.
The Sunglasses can also be set to be voice activated for commands as well.
Replaceable and Changeable Lenses
I have a tendency to scratch lenses on sunglasses so its great to see you can buy a replacement set for less than $20 that you can fit yourself. If you are wondering about these only being good for daytime use its good to see that there is also a clear lense version if you want to go running/cycling at night with them and still listen to music but keep your eyes protected.
Rugged and Water Resistant
I’ve dropped these a few times and the electronics were fine but I’ve had a number of people get in touch on my site complaining that the company doesn’t uphold their 1 year guarantee and often doesn’t respond to emails at all. . I also used them in the rain and they still worked so the gentle splash / water resistant rating does exactly what it claims.
Gripes
One obvious gripe is the lack of a sunglasses case for them. I cant see one on the website to buy either which is a shame. These are a little bit bigger on the arm when folded up so they are a bit of a squeeze in an existing case I had lying around.
Lots of Color Options
The website has 2 frame style choices and a few frame color options as well as a wide range of different color polarizing lenses so you can easily pick a combination that suits your style and use.
Verdict
A great idea that is executed with lacklustre build quality and questionable customer service. Sadly the company is getting a significant amount of complaints online that they don’t seem to be handling, and the build quality of the sunglasses and the charger is questionable. Given the price I would suggest getting a pair of well built Sunski Sunglasses instead and a pair of Aftershokz and save yourself $10 over a pair of Zungles.
Specifications
Weight
50g
Lens
UV400 / Polarized
FDA Certified
Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.0
A2DP profile 1.3 / HFP profile 1.7 / HSP profile 1.2
Wireless Range: 30 feet / 10 meters
Compatibility
Any Device(Smartphone, Computer, Tablet, etc.)
has Bluetooth and communication functions built-in
Battery*
115mAh Lithium Polymer
Stand-by time: 100 hours
Play time**: 4 hours
* Could be changed without any notice
** Set to volume level 10 at iOS 11
Charging time
Less than 1 hour by exclusive charging cable
Package Includes
Exclusive Charging cable,
Manual & warranty, Logo sticker
Works With Android and Apple
About Zungle
Their website says this –
Creating the Wearable Device that’s Actually Wearable!
To expand and lead consumer sector of smart eyewear market by redefining existing wearable devices.
Zungle’s products are designed in California U.S. with pleasant and warm hearts.
Zungle was founded in 2016 and Zunglers are from all over the world such as New York, L.A. and Seoul.
We strive for the world with more fun.
We create something that the world has never seen before.
We are entrepreneurs, designers, and engineers.
At the same time, we are skateboarders, fixie riders, snowboarders, and sneakerheads.
New things. New mixes.
We are born curious. We always ask questions and come up with answers that make your life a bit enjoyable.
Through this process, we create our own new rules.
We do what we want to make you laugh.
Wear the Beats.
These headphones don’t work very well, there is not enough volume, and sound quality is pretty bad. In fact mine were faulty, the charger failed to recharge the battery and so I was not able to use it after flattening out the battery with the initial use. After a very lengthy return process (RMA), I finally sent it back to them for a refund and guess what, 8 weeks later they are still telling me to wait for their evaluation. That’s it, never again Zungle or any other dodgy Kickstarter project.
The worst thing is bad customer support, so even if it was a good product, the bad customer support takes everything away. I wanted to support a small player, but unfortunately they are too disappointing and I feel cheated now.
Im sorry to hear about your experience with them. Can you update me on contact from them? If you havent heard from them in another week or so I can get in touch with Zungle with a contact I have and see if there is anything I can do to help ? Thanks L-S
Thank you for the offer, I will update you.
If nothing happens in the next 2 weeks you can private email me and Ill send you my test pair for you to keep if you like.
Where can I get a pair of Zungle viper thx
company is long gone. Also I had long term quality control issues and complaints from users not getting any reply from the company
The following has not only happened to me and can be read in several reviews. I got the zungles a half year ago and maybe used them 30 times. When I pulled it off as normal, the bracket broke. According to the company its outside of the guarantee due to wear … why are there evaluations where the same happened after 3 days and it also was no longer in guarantee? “We are a cool company” and then something like that? Not cool at all. I have cheaper Sunglasses that last longer.
Hi Josef, Thanks for reaching out. You aren’t alone, and my pair no longer charge. I’ve had a significant amount of feedback in the comments and emails direct to me about Zungles lack of customer service and that many pairs seem to break quickly so I’ve taken the step of terminating my affiliation with Zungle today and updated the summary of the blog to reflect my longer term use of their sunglasses. They had a great idea, but they aren’t really rugged enough, are a bit too quiet for urban areas and their lack of response on the phone is a concern. They have also repeatedly emailed me reducing my commission without notice or consultation.
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