Unless you’re wearing a shellsuit while watching a Betamax video of Roland Rat driving a Sinclair C5 to Woolworths to pick up a copy of No Jacket Required by Phil Collins, there are few things that look more ‘80s than these KM5 Lightwear Headphones Hp1.
Originally crowdfunded in Japan last year, enough people wanted to look like Marty McFly that these retro headphones are now available to buy for £159/$189 – and they’ve had some important upgrades to make them fit for use in 2025 rather than 1985.
For starters there’s Bluetooth 5.4 with LE Audio support, so you don’t need to worry about finding something with a 3.5mm port to plug them into, and even though they sit on your ears rather than fully covering them you get noise-cancelling with a transparency mode too.
At 103g they’re more than twice the weight of the original Sony Walkman headphones they mimic, but those didn’t have a 120mAh battery attached on each side, plus they still make the new Sony WH-1000XM6 look like they’re made out of lead.
There are no wires to connect the two sides, so you need to charge both batteries independently. Fortunately there’s a special split cable included in the box, and they should last up to 24 hours between charges, which is more than enough for the full discographies of both Phil Collins and Roland Rat.
As well as those batteries, each earcup is also home to a 40mm driver and a set of controls. You can adjust the volume, skip through your tunes, and also summon your phone’s voice assistant.
The KM5 Lightwear Headphones Hp1 are available in two different colours, both with swappable magnetic ear cushions. The white ones come with gray and turquoise, while the black ones get black and dark red. Choose the pair that best matches your shellsuit.
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