Life gets tangled… your earbuds shouldn’t. SLIDE by Zipbuds features cables that seal together to keep your earbuds untangled.
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Life gets tangled… your earbuds shouldn’t. SLIDE by Zipbuds features cables that seal together to keep your earbuds untangled.
About this project
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Glow-in-the-dark is only available with purchase of the Kickstarter special package, "Glow-in-the-Dark +MIC".
We have absolutely no doubt that we will deliver a high quality product to all of our supporters. We have never shipped a product that we have not felt 100% confident about. Over the past few years, one of our primary focuses has been to improve our manufacturing partnerships and processes. We are more prepared than ever to deliver something incredible.
We have listed estimated delivery dates for all of our reward tiers but we believe you guys deserve more explanation than a simple date. Our current estimated delivery windows are December (Super Early Bird, Early Bird) and January (All other tiers). In truth, our personal goal is to deliver our SLIDE products to all of our supporters as soon as we possibly can. We will do EVERYTHING possible to get these to you in time for the holidays.
We would love to be able to guarantee delivery for the holidays (and we almost decided to) but our experience tells us that guaranteeing delivery dates on first production runs is just not prudent or responsible. Anything and everything can happen. From development to manufacturing to shipping, there is no shortage of things that can go awry.
What we can guarantee is this: we will do everything in our power to deliver on what we promise, we will be completely transparent throughout the process, and most of all, the happiest day for us will be the day we send finished product to all of you.
So begins the first step of an incredible and long journey. Livespeakr was a revolutionary portable speaker system that worked with your phone in both portrait and landscape view.
Inside Scoop: As our first product, Livespeakr will always have a special place in our hearts. There are only a few left in existence and we keep them well guarded for family and friends ;)
The success of Livespeakr confirmed we were building a solid foundation in our industry. We knew there was still a long road ahead...but this early success fueled us on to continue creating new and exciting products.
At this time, the earbud and headphone industry was really beginning to boom. We looked around the marketplace and noticed that most brands were stuck coming out with different colors/patterns but true innovation was rare. After long hours and late nights, we decided to take down a problem that had gone unaddressed for far too long. We were going to make tangled cables a thing of the past... and we were going to do it with zippers.
Our goal was to create something that was simple, stylish, and most of all, completely tangle-free. If you've seen our first prototypes in the video above (they were pretty... rough), you'll know we didn't get it right on the first shot. It wasn't until we figured out how to build the zipper teeth directly onto the cables that we realized we had a winner.
Given the unique challenges our cable technology presented, we knew our manufacturing relationships had to be special. We needed a partner that not only understood the ins and outs of cables... they had to be driven to take risks with us and boldly go where no cable manufacturer had gone before.
We partnered with one of the worlds leading manufacturers of specialty cables. They specialize in designing cables for military use, medical applications, and the largest concerts in the world.
Select and Choice were our two over-the-ear headphone models that utilized our zipper cabling. In the summer of 2012, we designed a custom headphone that was given to the U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team... we even caught a glimpse of Kobe rocking them before the gold medal game!
Inside Scoop: Originally, we had planned for three headphone models: Select, Choice, and Prime... yes... the names were based on the USDA meat grading system. :P
Holy cow - patents take a long time to issue! Nearly four years after filing our utility patent for the zipper and SLIDE technologies, we were finally made official! We recognize the value of our intellectual property and we're constantly bolstering our portfolio.
Our focus on quality begins paying off... the fourth (and current) generation of zipper earbuds are receiving great reviews from our supporters. Zipper earbuds are awesome! However, we weren't even close to done innovating.
Since our beginning, we have always envisioned creating a product that was minimal in design and completely tangle-free. With the experience we gained developing previous products and the partnerships we built along the way, we were ready to accomplish our goal. The initial concept sketches were put on paper and Zipbuds SLIDE begins to take its first steps towards reality.
We created our first pre-production prototypes for Zipbuds SLIDE and the results have been incredible. The form and function are there... but we need your support to perfect the design and help the world to live tangle-free.
Risks and challenges
Design and Manufacturing:
We have set out to do something very different and very awesome. We face unique challenges when it comes to material requirements and durability. We have researched and prepared a variety of solutions for potential challenges.
Product Adjustments:
We will not release a product that is not up to our quality standards. We have a detailed plan to perfect our product. Regardless of our level of preparation, unforeseen challenges may arise that require us to slow things down to get them right. We promise to be completely transparent as we go down the road to production and delivery.
Production and Delivery:
As with any first production run, there are many variables that could impact our delivery time. Production speeds may vary, material shipments may become delayed, last-minute modifications could become necessary, and delays may occur while shipping the product to our warehouse. We have run every scenario we can think of and we could not be more prepared to react to potential obstacles. We will use any shipping method necessary to help meet our timeline.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
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Absolutely. This was one of our primary points of focus when tuning and testing the mic/remote. We placed the mic/remote lower on the cable so that the slider can be pulled all the way to the top. This ensures that SLIDE mic is completely tangle-free. We have tuned the mic/remote components to clearly pick up voice from this distance while eliminating ambient/exterior noise.
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Here are the technical audio specifications for SLIDE and SLIDE mic:
• Driver Size: 11mm
• Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz
• Impedance: 16 Ohms
• Sensitivity: 104 +/- 3dB
• Max Input Power 20mW -
Zipbuds SLIDE is compatible with the Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and any device that has a 3.5 mm audio jack (this includes laptops and computers as well).
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Zipbuds SLIDE is compatible with most Android devices that have a 3.5 mm audio jack (this includes Tablets as well).
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Zipbuds SLIDE is compatible with most Smartphones such as Windows Mobile or Blackberry devices that have a 3.5 mm audio jack (this includes Tablets as well)
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Answer Calls (Press remote button once)
Hang Up-Calls (Press remote button once)
Play/Pause/Skip Songs (Press remote button once - Skip songs press button twice.)
Activate Voice Control (Long hold down the remote button) -
No. Volume control will have to be controlled through the device itself. Our SLIDE mic model comes with a 1-button mic/remote so it cannot control the volume on devices.
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The cable on SLIDE and SLIDE mic is 50 inches long.
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We offer a 1-year limited warranty on all of our products. If it’s a manufacturing defect and it’s within 1 year, you send them back and we send you a new one.
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Components for our SLIDE products come from Taiwan, China, and Japan. Final assembly is performed in China.
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Funding period
- (36 days)