Handy, such wireless headphones. Not only do you no longer have to hassle with a wire, thanks to the built-in battery you often have noise suppression and sound transmission. But such a battery, it goes empty. Headphone maker Urbanista came up with a simple solution: headphones with solar cells. You can read how that works in practice in this Urbanista Los Angeles review.
Urbanista – Los Angeles
Price € 199,-
Frequency range 10Hz – 20kHz
drivers 40mm
Impedance 32 ohms
wireless Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions 25 x 20 x 7 cm
Weight 310 grams
Included carrying case, usb-c charging cable
Other Noise reduction, ambient pass-through, solar cell, usb-c
Website www.urbanista.com
8 Score 80 
- Pros
- solar cell
- Build quality
- wearing comfort
- Negatives
- App is buggy
- Audio port is missing
Why has no manufacturer come up with this before? Headphone makers seem to be mostly concerned with the ear cup, sound quality and features, and so on. Apple did have an eye for the band around the head, by making it from aluminum they could give the AirPods Pro just that luxurious look that you expect at the absurd price. Then Urbanista does it better. A solar cell is incorporated in the band of the headphones. No bluish panels as you are used to, but as a kind of foil over the tire (PowerFoyle is called this foil). This gives you the advantages of a solar cell, without this detracting from the appearance of the headphones. When you see the headphones, you wouldn’t say that it generates its own energy.
Miami is like Los Angeles
Urbanista names all his headphones after cities. For example, earphones in the London and Stockholm series previously passed by the editors. The same goes for the headphones in the Miami series, which are actually pretty much the same as the Urbanista Los Angeles. But without a solar charger. The Urbanista Miami also seems to be an excellent basis for expanding with such a cell.
Incidentally, the Urbanista Los Angeles also simply has a USB-C connection, with which you can charge the headphones with a cable, if it is empty.
Solar cell in practice
Unfortunately, with the Urbanista Los Angeles you can’t shout “unlimited power” like Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars movies. After all, your headphones only charge when they are in sunlight. If you walk outside in the sun, you will notice that when you use the headphones, more energy is always consumed than is being charged. Of course it extends the battery life. Especially if you listen to music without noise reduction or sound transmission. When you use these playback modes, your headphones will consume more power.
In the sun you can charge and play at the same time, but the battery runs out faster than it charges.
And if your battery still runs out, you can still listen through the wired connection while the solar cell does its charging work. However? New. The wired connection is removed from the headphones, next to the solar cell the only difference compared to the Urbanista Miami. Unnecessary, clunky and Urbanista’s argument doesn’t make it any better: “The reason we decided to remove the headphone cable connector is to reduce the number of adapters, cables and components needed for the product because wired use for is not a priority for most wireless headset users. In addition, omitting the cable connector is also a more environmentally friendly solution.” Especially the environmentally friendly argument is abrasive, since a battery has a limited life and a cable can theoretically keep your headphones working.
With a few tricks you can make optimal use of the solar cell on your headphones. Urbanista thinks along with this, by keeping the case of the headphones open, so that charging can even be done without removing the headphones from the bag. For example, by not leaving the headphones in the bag, but putting them down, they always take some light with them. So in practice I managed to last a very long time with a charged battery, depending on how often and for how long you use your headphones and how regularly you can put them in the light, you can go on almost endlessly without having to recharge them. And I write that in mid-November, a test period in which not much daylight is available. Please note that even with scarce use you can hardly avoid having to charge it by cable every now and then.
urbanista app
Urbanista headphones used to have to do without an app. But now that this Urbanista Los Angeles has come out, there is also an app available. The big plus of this app is that you can see if the headphones catch enough light to charge. The app still needs a lot of work. All you can do is configure a few function buttons (these buttons are located on the earcups: three on the right, one on the left). You can also turn on the play mode, which is also possible with the function buttons. There is no equalizer or the ability to update the firmware.
Another shortcoming that I regularly encountered during testing is that the app indicates that it cannot connect to the headphones. Which is a crazy bug as I get this error even when I’m actually wearing the headphones and playing music on them through the smartphone.
Quality
For the price tag of about 199 euros, you do not buy the headphones with the highest quality sound quality, microphones and playback options with the Urbanista Los Angeles. You really buy the headphones for the solar cell.
The sound quality is okay, but it lacks some power and sound detail. The same can be said about the noise reduction. It does filter out some ambient noise. Only the noise reduction has some trouble with strong winds. The mode that allows ambient noise to pass through works as you would expect.
The wearing comfort and the build quality in turn get a plus. The headphones are well constructed, the part near the ear cups that you adjust to size also looks and feels luxurious. The headphones look nice and can be worn for a long time without pressing on the ears. Nobody sees that a solar cell is incorporated in the headband.
Conclusion: Want to buy Urbanista Los Angeles?
The Urbanista Los Angeles has a solar cell that offers real added value, as long as you can keep the headphones up to the light and don’t depend on them for more than thirty hours at a time. The cell charges slowly. It is Urbanista’s trump card, because for the same price you can buy headphones with better playback quality. The downside is the lack of wired connection options.
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