Posted by Vince Wadhwani on Dec 06, 2006

Newsflash: We are all not 6'4" tall. Not news for many of you? Well, as it turns out, one size fits all when it comes to earphones. Whether you buy the full sized iPod, a Nano, or some other music player, the cord you get is designed to traverse from your ears all the way to your back pocket. This can be mighty inconvenient if you store your music player in your coat pocket or someplace else. The situation gets even worse if you use a mobile phone though. Why? Because many mobiles, such as the dastardly cool Nokia N73 or the not-so-cool Sony W810, use a special adapter to connect from the phone interface to the microphone. In essence you get an extra two and half feet of cord to contend with which is almost long enough to jump rope. Something must be done!

I had tried various methods like this one. Not only did it take 5 minutes but it unraveled just about every time I set my earphones down. After a few tries my fingers started to get sore and my wife kept looking at me like I was some sort of surfer having a mid-life crisis. I'm pretty sure if I had a dog, he'd be giving me dirty looks too.

Enter this little cool device called a Smart Wrap. Made by a small company in Singapore called Sumajin, this little $5 wonder has done the unthinkable: tamed my cords in a sane and simple way.

The beauty of the solution isn't just that it's cheap but also that it's *light*. That means when I am jostled for some reason and it falls, it doesn't yank my earphones out because it's too heavy. Really solid work done by the designer and highly recommended. It ships from Singapore though ($5 shipping/handling IIRC) so best place your orders soon if you're going to make it a stocking stuffer.

After using it for 2 weeks I feel liberated. I no longer look longingly at my HS-20 and weep because I don't have 20 minutes to untangle the gory ball of wires it's become. Finally I'm using my N73 for music like I had intended when I bought it!