The house of Urban, a Chennai-based smart wearables company, recently launched a series of TWS earbuds, including the Vibe Loop that I got for testing.
These TWS earbuds come with open-ear air conduction technology, featuring an on-ear design that Urban claims will give listening pleasure without discomfort or ear-aches that arise due to the usage of conventional in-ear TWS earbuds. Let’s dive in to see if that is indeed the case.
Looks and fit
Once out of the packaging, you will be greeted with the large oval case that houses the earbuds. The case is made of plastic and mine was the white colour variant, which felt sturdy but the large size may be off-putting for some.
Once opened, the earbuds are placed snugly inside the charging dock. There is a small rectangular, LED display that lights up to show the battery percentage once the earbuds are removed from their charging dock.
The open-air earbuds come with a sliding earloop design that look like a circular stem surrounding the outer ear to ensure a snug fit, helped by the rotating earloops that can be adjusted as per ear size. Meanwhile, the main earbuds get positioned at a slight angle to the ear canal, ensuring a small gap between the ear canal and the earbuds.
During my usage, I found this design to be of great help in ensuring they don’t fall off when I was working out, walking or doing yoga. However, the stem’s material could have been softer as I did feel some uneasiness in my outer ear after continuous usage.
Performance and sound
The Urban Vibe loop TWS earbuds come with a host of features – Bluetooth 5.4, spatial 3D sound output, smart AI sound amplifier, ENC noise cancellation and super-low latency for gaming, among others.
Pairing the Urban Vibe loop to both Android and iOS devices was quick and easy, thanks to the latest Bluetooth 5.4. Once connected to the device, the inbuilt voice assistant alerts that the connection has been made.
In my two weeks with the on-ear TWS earbuds, I paced the device through a range of uses – from watching movies and web series on OTTs to listening to a variety of music tracks across genres such as hard rock, metal to Bollywood to instrumental tracks, to watching live sports such as the men’s T20 Cricket World Cup, Euro Championships in football and the Wimbledon tennis championships. And my experience in all these cases were pleasant – the sound quality in all cases were crisp and easy on the ears, with the correct notes being conveyed to the listener. Keeping the retail price of Rs 2,199 in mind, the sound experience was satisfactory.
The one drawback I would say is the lack of bass and punch – and the main reason for the that is the style and design of these TWS earbuds – the air conduction design while looks unique and eye-catching, it stays away from the ear canals. Thus, the end music is not thumping to the ears and is more like a lullaby that seems to come from a slightly distant source. For me, the massive 14.3 mm audio drivers in the earbuds seemed to have gone to waste due to this design.
The super-low latency mode ensured lag-free viewing of multimedia content. Urban claims a battery backup of 120 hours and 45 hours of playing time, which was more than sufficient for my regular usage of 1-2 hours of daily listening. Taking phone or video calls with the earbuds was also a pleasant and lag-free experience.
So, in a nutshell, if you listen to mainly classics or soothing tracks then you will enjoy this device. But for bass-lovers who prefer the music to come heavy to their ears, then Urban Vibe loop may not appeal to them, and at this price better sounding in-ear options are available that will deliver better bass.
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