Your pockets are more powerful than you’re giving them credit for. After all, you can unplug a pair of earbuds from your phone — fully untangled, might we add — slip them into your pocket (or purse, or whatever), and before long the cables are mysteriously tangled together like cherry stems on a contortionist’s tongue. Untwisting the cords only takes a few minutes, but the annoyance is a guaranteed mood-dampener. Luckily, Gary is here to save you from your earphones.
Gary, or Gary 2.0 to be exact, is an automatic earphone organizer, designed to drastically reduce the amount of time you spend untying your earbuds’ tethers, and increase the amount of time you spend actually listening to music. A Kickstarter project from London-based Sebastian Max, the second iteration of Gary (the Gary?), is little more than a spring mounted ring with a hook on the inside. Loop your headphone cable around the hook, and Gary 2.0 (no, we don’t get the name either) will automatically reel in the cable, spooling your ‘phones neatly around the sleeve’s inner housing.
When you’re ready to start listening again, simply pull on the earpieces and they’ll quickly unravel, tethered to the hook so they don’t fly off, and, voilà! No more frustration resulting from the arduous untangling process.
Gary 2.0 measures just 2.4 inches wide and less than an inch thick, so it should easily fit into most pockets without hassle. For reference, it’s about the size of a Zippo lighter, except more bulbous (and a little bigger if there are earphones in it). The Kickstarter page claims that Gary — available in black and gray — protects earphones and prolongs cable life; we’re not so sure about that, given the speed with which it spools, so we probably wouldn’t recommend slipping in your uber-expensive custom-molded buds straight away. If you’ve got some cheap workout headphones, Apple’s EarPods, or basic earbuds you bought at the airport after forgetting yours, though, it could be pretty dang useful.
The project has received more than $11,000 in funding thus far (nearly doubling its goal), and will run through December 21. Pledge 9 British pounds (roughly $12), and you’ll get one Gary 2.0 for your troubles. As always, we advise caution with crowdfunding projects, as there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get the product. But if you’re feeling the Kickstarter campaign, and you’re willing to take a slight leap of faith, this could be a great way to take one more daily annoyance out of the equation.
