Kokoon.io Headphones Review

Kokoon Headphones Review

They are finally here! After waiting for over two years for my Kokoon.io headphones, they finally arrived yesterday. Here is a picture of my pair.

Since everyone reading this might not be aware of the waiting history of Kokoon headphones, it is worth to shortly look back so all readers can at least understand what ordering things from Kickstarter can be like and why the internet is filled with "Kokoon is a Scam" blog posts.

Kokoon originally started out as Kickstarter project in 2015. They quickly raised almost 2 million $ (!) from almoast 8500 backers. This is a serious success and it seemed to have surprised the Kokoon team big time. The estimated delivery was scheduled to be in February 2016. (How wrong was that date)

I got interested about the Kokoon project from the start but having lost money in a Kickstarter project bankrupcy earlier, I have learnt to be a bit cautios about backing seemingly over achieving projects. In 2015 I decided to wait and see how to project does. After following the project for almost two (2!) years, I decided to order as Kokoon's communication made it look like they are just about to deliver and, well, I was very enthusiastic about the product so the geek inside me took over reason.

Kokoon has since the beginning been relatively active in communicating their project status.
However their promise for delivery schedule has been extremely optimist to say kindly. Sometimes (not seldom) their promises have seemed like straight out lies as their delivery date has been pushed forward quarter by quarter. Though, with Kickstarter projects, it is easy to forget that usually the people running the projects aren't professionals of the manufacturing industry. They are running things in Start up -mode learning about next steps as they come.

So, long story short, 8500 backers waited for nearly 4 years to get their headphones. What was so special about Kokoon that made thousands of nerds wait for years?

For me it was their promises over multiple noise cancellation techniques, EEG and comfort of the headphones. Noise cancellation was advertised to have three layers:

1. Active Noise Cancellation
2. Passive Noise Cancellation (insulation)
3. Active White Noise

Especially the last one was interesting. Earlier it was advertised to "scramble intelligent noises" making them "unitelligent" so that your brain would not pick up on these. While ANC features on these advertisements sounds great, the reality isn't all that good. Average pair of similarly priced Bose delivers better result. Especially the Active White Noise was a huge disappointment. It basically is just annoying background buzz that makes the headset sound like a low end equipment. To this day I'm not sure if AWN is actually just a clever marketing trick to hide the fact that Kokoon's engineers couldn't produce crystal clear sound. 

One of the unique selling points was the EEG which no other headset has. This has also been a huge disappointment as I have not been able to test it due to the fact that Kokoon App refuses to recognize my headset. The app does give notice that it is "early access" and that "there may still be some bugs". Well, there is atleast one that prevents me from using the app at all. After 4 in the making, not very impressive Kokoon, not very Impressive at all. 

Last point of interest was the comfort of the headphones which was advertised to be comfortable enough to sleep in. While these are more comfortable to wear than most ANC headphones I have tried, including the Bose QuietComfort II and B&W PX, these are definately not comfortable enough to sleep in. The earcup is still too hard to sleep on my side and the rubber cups are making my ears sweat. There is absolutely no way that wearing these headphones will improve my night's sleep anyway. Due to discomfort, they will do exactly the opposite. 

There might be situations where the Kokoons could still provide useful, such as airplanes. Still the unique selling points are so far from reality that I feel utterly disappointed.

Battery life on the headset isn't great but it will last roughly over night. You will have to charge every day though. The overall feeling of finish isn't highend as the current selling price of 319,99€ would suggest. The materials around ear cups seem of higher quality but the plastic parts are somehow quite low end and give a feeling of low quality for the whole product. If you compare this to B&W's, Bose's or Sony's ANC products, you'll notice a difference in quality of materials used.

The sound quality is actually ok given that these are ANC headphones. Again the top players in the market beat Kokoon in sound quality but this product isn't aimed for the HiFi market, so to me the sound is good enough. 

Also the packaging and the case that the headphones come in, is of high quality. The unboxing experience is a bit like with Apple products. Too bad that after so many years in the making, the actual product doesn't live up to the promises. 

There is a viral Reddit thread about experiences of backers here that is worth checking out: https://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/a4b8jc/has_someone_received_their_kokoon_headphones/