Hasta La Gadget!

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If you were waiting for a point at which Chris Evans’ Captain America were able to be brought back to life, you might like this movie trailer. The movie is Lightyear – a spin-off of Toy Story, made to show the “origin” of the character Buzz Lightyear*. This is a 3D animation sort of film, directed by Angus MacLane, based … Continue reading

81 percent. That’s the current battery level on the pair of Urbanista’s Los Angeles headphones sitting on my desk. When I took them out of the box about a week ago, the battery level was 75 percent. Number of charges? Zero. Hours of use? Around 10. In short, with some fairly typical listening and precisely no interaction with a charging cable, the headphones have more battery life than when I received them. Impressive, though not without some caveats.

First, let’s back up a little bit. If you missed the announcement, the Los Angeles’ main selling point was that they came with “Powerfoyle” solar charging cells in the headband for $200. The promise was simple: even indoors, these headphones will slowly charge when not in use. Go outside? They might even maintain their level while playing music; if it’s a particularly sunny day they could even gain battery life while you listen, even with ANC on.

The headphones themselves have a classic Scandinavian understated look. Acoustically, they don’t offer too many surprises. That’s to say, expect a slightly bottom-heavy EQ experience, but overall they deliver robust clear audio that won’t tire your ears. They are Bluetooth only, though, so no wired option here. More on that in a bit.

James Trew / Engadget

Of course, the real interest is that claim of a “nonstop audio experience.” As my intro suggests, the company’s claims are true. Or should I say, can be true? The headphones definitely charge themselves, even indoors, but it’s not time to throw away the (included) USB cable just yet.

If you plan on using these mostly indoors, then you will almost certainly be charging them. Even about as much as you might any other pair. That’s because while the claim about indoor charging is true, it’s barely a trickle and only really under direct light. If you place them near a window between uses you can expect a little more juice, but it’s still more of a modest top-off than a flow of free energy.

This I can say with relative confidence thanks to the companion app which kindly shows you power coming in versus power being used with a fancy little circular chart. When the photons are abundant, the chart turns a pale green and a reassuring “up” arrow lets you know the headphones are gaining power. Enter the shadows, however, and things turn red to let you know you’re draining the battery. You can even see the amount of energy coming in or being used at any one time.

James Trew / Engadget

With this info we can start to get an idea of how effectively the solar charging works. For example, just by turning the headphones on they will use about 2.6mA to maintain a connection to a phone. Play music, and this goes up to around 9mA. Add on either ANC or Ambient mode and this can creep up to around 13-15mA. Those are our numbers to “beat.”

In my testing, when laid flat on a table in a room without direct sunlight or any lights on during the day, they won’t charge at all. If I placed them directly under a lamp or bulb you might get between 0.2 and 1mA of charge. Place them near a window during the day and this can climb to about 3mA. Open that window and it’ll increase to maybe 4mA (indirect sunlight). So far, you’re only really slowing down their battery use by a tiny amount.

As I already hinted at, things get a lot more interesting once you head outside. Walking in the shade in the street you can expect about 3-5mA of input. Again, you’re still in net loss. Head out directly into the sun, however, and everything springs to life. I was frequently able to achieve 24mA of “gain” while listening to music with ANC (for around 8-10mA of drain).

The short version is… that the Urbanistas will charge when there’s ambient light. A bit. But take them outside (and with good sunshine) and they will even charge while in use. All this to say that, if I used these like I do any other wireless headphones, I would expect the solar charging to maybe add a few hours to their battery life. If I only used them outdoors, they would live forever.

This is all good news though. What Urbanista has done here is set a benchmark. JBL tried something similar, but that project was tabled due to COVID travel restrictions making them unviable. Urbanista is actually shipping its version and it can only get better from here.

Perhaps the most understated achievement here is that the headphones don’t look like they have a solar panel attached. At least if you opt for the black pair. The cells in the head strap more or less blend into the design of the Los Angeles, just with the Powerfoyle logo on them (also in black so it’s fairly subtle). The headphones are also available in “sand gold” which is more of a cream/mushroom color. On those, the solar strip is painfully obvious but done in such a way it could be passed off as a style choice.

There are some other minor notes to consider. Most notably, for me, the volume. Urbanista says the pair I received for review are set at about 2dB below what the retail model will offer. But using them with an iPhone I have to almost always have them on full volume if I want to be immersed in a song. I found myself frequently mashing the volume button in vain when a banger came on and I wanted to get truly lost in sound but there was never anywhere left to go. I listen to a lot of bangers.

For people that don’t assault their ears, the volume is probably fine. It’s not hugely lower than, say, the AiAiAi TMA-2s I use. Connect things to a computer and, well, you can go a bit louder, so some of this, the company suggests, is down to your device’s chipset and regional limitations.

James Trew / Engadget

If there was a second bugbear, it’d be the buttons. The Los Angeles has three buttons on the right side for volume/play/pause and skipping tracks and power. Then there’s a lone button on the other side for switching between ANC, Ambient mode and “default” mode or activating your phone’s assistant. The problem is, the buttons on the right side — i.e. the ones you interact with most — are tiny and very close together. This means that swift volume changes are difficult. Instead, you have to sort of fondle around to “count” the buttons with your finger to find the first or third one.

I do also wish there was the option to use them with a 3.5mm cable. Not only does that give you an option for whenever the battery does run out (or you’re in an Airplane mode situation) it would ameliorate some of my volume woes for when I really do need to feel a drop right to the core of my amygdala. (DACs are wonderful things.)

As for other small positives, the app is a nice touch and opens up the door for possible firmware updates or new features. It was a little flakey in connecting sometimes. Or rather, once it had been connected and then left idle, I’d sometimes have to restart it, but for the amount of time you need it it’s not a major pain to swipe it away and open it again.

There’s also auto-pause when you take the headphones off. This is a subtle but welcome addition that gives things a slightly more premium feel.

All in all, the Los Angeles’ features and pricepoint come together to make a pleasing experience. The sound is very capable without being too aggressive in the lower frequencies. The battery life is obviously a selling point if you frequently find yourself without gas while on the go. And the small touches like Ambient mode/ANC, auto pause and so on just round them out to be a little more comprehensive than other options in this price range. If they were a smidge louder and had a 3.5mm port then these would be a solid pick for me, but even without those features, it’s hard not to admire what Urbanista has done here for $200.

More than two years after announcing the Osmo Action, DJI is back with a new rugged camera that not only drops the Osmo name but also adopts a fresh new design. The Action 2 features a 155-degree field of view lens and 12-megapixel sensor that can capture 4K footage at up to 120 frames per second, and 240 frames per second slow-motion video at 1080p. In 2021, that’s not impressive for an action camera when you consider GoPro’s latest top-end model, the Hero 10 Black, can do 5.3K at 60 frames per second and 240 frames per second at 2.7K. So what makes Action 2 into something interesting? It’s all about the form factor.

DJI

DJI’s latest device weighs just under two ounces and includes a magnetic mounting system you can use to expand the functionality of the camera. We’ve seen companies like Insta360 pull off similar designs, but DJI’s execution looks particularly handy. Want to add a front-facing display to make the Action 2 into a vlogging camera? You can with a touchscreen module that adds a secondary OLED display and three additional microphones to the camera, as well as allows you to record up to 160 minutes of footage without stopping. A separate battery module extends the Action 2’s battery life from 70 minutes to three hours and adds an extra microSD slot. Other accessories allow you to mount the camera to a floating handle, a 3-in-1 extension rod and a lanyard, among other things.

Other nifty features include a dedicated sensor that can help the camera produce accurate color tones in challenging lighting conditions and underwater. A feature called SnapShot allows you to turn on the device and start recording right away by holding down the power button. It also comes with all of DJI’s usual camera features, including the ability to double as a web camera and capture time-lapses.

The Action 2 is available to buy today from DJI’s website. The company isn’t selling the camera on its own. Instead, you can either buy it as part of either a $399 or $519 bundle. The former comes with the aforementioned battery module while the latter includes the touchscreen accessory. Both bundles also come with a variety of mounts.

In the summer and fall of 2020, smoke filled the skies above San Francisco, hanging heavy over the coast and bathing the city in an eerie orange glow. Massive wildfires were tearing across California, eating up piles of dead trees on the mountains and razing nearby housing developments. By the end of the year, 33 people would be killed in fires across California and 2020 would go down as the largest wildfire season in the state’s modern history.

Cecil Powell was living and working in the area at the time, helping develop Call of Duty: Vanguard as a senior lighting artist at Sledgehammer Games. For days on end, he and his teammates would wake up to a red-tinged world filled with ash, and then they’d sit in front of their computers and attempt to recreate the ravaged landscapes of World War II. As a lighting specialist, one of Powell’s jobs was to build the skies above Stalingrad, a bloody city scene marked by bombed buildings and raging fires.

Fires — just like the ones burning across California, painting the Bay Area a Martian red.

“It was a pretty weird feeling,” Powell told Engadget. “But I remember talking to the team about it, and we were actually thinking, man, it kind of feels like war time. Like destruction.”

Call of Duty as a series has found years of success turning tragedy into entertainment, using the real-world horrors of war to build lifelike digital playgrounds for soldiers, snipers and spawn campers alike. To Powell and the Sledgehammer crew, the orange skies caused by the fires in California made for natural, serendipitous source material, especially since color photography wasn’t ubiquitous during WWII. Powell’s Vanguard reference photos were all in black and white.

The Sledgehammer team agreed that it’d be a good idea for Powell to capture images and light readings of the fiery California skies to use in the Stalingrad level, but they were concerned about his health. After all, the air looked radioactive. So, Powell bought an air-quality monitor, tested it outside and got the green light. He did some quick research and discovered that marine wind patterns in the Bay were pushing the smoke up and circulating fresh air on the ground, and the all-consuming toxic glow was simply due to light refracting through the clouds.

“As soon as I found that out, I grabbed all the camera gear that I had from work and ran out, and decided I was just going to capture this because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Powell said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before and I hope I never see anything like that again, to be honest. Because, you know, it’s pretty sad to think about what is causing it. And I remember while I was out there, no one was really outside walking around.”

Cecil Powell

Powell made this trek in September 2020, at the height of California’s wildfire season and in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The city was largely shut down, streets abandoned, hot smoke collecting above empty buildings. He headed toward the coast.

Powell set up his camera and captured a panorama of the sky, and also took some light readings. His girlfriend at the time came along and he asked her to document the process, for history’s sake.

When he brought the photos and readings back to Sledgehammer, “everyone was shocked at actually what it did to the lighting in the level,” Powell said. “The sky’s the most important thing lighting-wise, because for exterior lighting, it really sets the mood and the tone for levels. And when we brought it in, we’re like wow, this actually looks pretty good for coming from such destruction.”

Powell’s wildfire captures are used in the Stalingrad level, one of the only theaters in the game to feature a full city destroyed by bombs and flames. The light throughout the level glows a hellish orange, just like the coasts and valleys of California last year.

“Nature to me is the best artist, you know?” Powell said. “If you can replicate that, you’re pretty much winning.”

The Stalingrad level may be an automatic win for Powell, but everyone else is still going to have to shoot their way through it when Vanguard comes out on November 5th.