At the start of the pandemic, there was high hopes it would be brief. Lockdowns and Work From Home (WFH) have quickly become the new normal. While lockdowns have fallen by the wayside, WFH is definitely here to stay for a lot of people and the demand for better peripherals has increased.

Logitech has been one of the companies filling the void for better quality accessories. The new Logitech Zone Vibe Wireless Headphones and Brio 500 Webcam, launched last month, are their latest releases offering hybrid solutions that will not only help with WFH, but also offer better options for play – we checked out the Brio 500 webcam already, and now it’s time to check out their Zone Vibe 100 headphones. 

The Zone Vibe 100 headphones are priced at $179.95 and are connectable via Bluetooth or USB-C and come with built-in boom mic. The Zone Vibe 100 have memory phone covered ear cups covered in a knitted fabric for supreme comfort so you can wear them all day and quality 40mm drivers for excellent sound for either your favourite tunes or just better quality audio in Zoom or Teams meetings. 

I’ve been listening to the Zone Vibe 100 around the house and out and about for a couple of weeks now, and here’s how they went.

Design and Hardware

The Logitech Zone Vibe 100 headphones are extremely comfortable to wear. The adjustable head strap easily adjusts to fit your head, but stays in that position once you’ve adjusted them for your head and the ear cups fit neatly over your ears without crushing them. 

The headphones feel light and the knitted fabric over the memory foam earpads are extremely comfortable to wear, even for long periods making them a great pair of headphones to work in all day. 

On the back of the ear cups are buttons for physical controls, which include a play/pause button on the right ear cup, while on the left you get a call receive/end button, volume up/down and a power button which can be used to initiate the bluetooth pairing. There’s also a USB-C port for charging and indicator LED. 

The buttons are nicely ‘clicky’ and satisfying to press, but it can be a little difficult to remember where each function button is to start with, necessitating removing the headphones and checking – but after a while the play/pause on the right and volume/power on the left is pretty easy to remember. 

There’s a short boom mic on the left hand side which slots away when not in use but can pick up your voice without needing to cover your mouth. The boom mic will automatically turn on when you swing the boom mic down, and mute when you push it back up – excellent!

I do have concerns about the longevity of the movable boom mic, though it stood up to my 11 year old playing around with it for a few days. 

The design of the Logitech Zone Vibe 100 headphones is very comfortable to wear, but there are some things to note. Unlike some more premium headphone options you can’t turn the ear cups on the Zone Vibe 100 headphones to lay them flat for storage – although the provided drawstring bag, it’s not a big issue just something to note. I ended up hanging them off my desk for storage which worked pretty well.

Setup and Use

Setup is easy, whether it be via USB-C or Bluetooth. You can simply pair or plug in the headphones and start using them, or head to www.logitech.com/tune to download the Tune  software for Mac or Windows or head to the iOS app store or Google Play store to download the Tune for mobile app.

The Tune software shows you your agenda if you want to connect your Google or Microsoft calendars,as well as device info showing which devices you have connected including showing the battery and charging status for the Zone Vibe 100 headphones. 

You can control both the audio and mic settings in the Tune app. The app lets you set the side tone and mic volume amongst other settings and there’s also a 5-band graphic equaliser to set your own audio levels, or presets for Bass, Podcasting, Volume Boost if you want to let Logitech take the reigns – which are all pretty decent options.

The Zone Vibe Wireless headphones support multipoint audio, so you can connect them to your PC as well as your phone – and the headphones will also let you know when you’re connected to a second device with an audible ‘Second device connected’ alert.

The connected devices section of the app lets you control which devices the headphones will connect to, as well as the switch settings including an option for Phone Calls only, or use them for Audio, Calls and Notifications. 

This multipoint functionality lets you take calls or meetings and listen to music or watch videos etc. on either device. The bonus though is it auto-switches if you need it to and it all works very smoothly between Android and Windows.. 

Audio Quality

The audio quality from the mic is crystal clear and lag free according to people I spoke with using a number of apps including Teams, Zoom, Telegram and of course the Phone dialler on the Pixel 7 Pro – all of which is a big bonus for calls and meetings. 

The 40mm drivers inside the Logitech Zone Vibe Wireless headphones sound excellent and let you ramp the volume up fairly high if you need, though the clarity on offer means you shouldn’t need to. 

There isn’t any noise cancelling on the Zone Vibe Wireless headphones. However the isolation is actually pretty decent, so you won’t notice too much background noise including things like rain outside or the air-con/heater going but you can certainly here when the kids come yelling for you.

Battery

Logitech has included a decent sized battery in the Vibe 100 headphones, with the official specs listing 18 hours talk time or 20 hours listening time. I can confirm they will definitely last over a full day of use easily.

You can check the battery level at any time on your Windows PC or on your phone through the Logi Tune app. You can also check the battery through the native Bluetooth connection screen on desktop or on mobile, if you don’t want to install the app. 

Charging is decently fast, simpy plug in the supplied USB-C cable to any power brick you have or just a USB-C port on your PC and you’re set.

Should you buy them?

The Zone Vibe 100 are an excellent quality pair of headphones that are super comfy to wear all day because of the soft ear cups and lightweight design. The sound quality is also excellent and the equaliser tuning offers the option to tune to your preferred audio levels, and multipoint pairing is a great incusion. The mic is decent quality and the flip to mute a neat feature. 

At $179.95 they’re a good buy if you want some lightweight quality headphones which are super comfy to wear or are working from home and need something that will offer decent quality audio for meetings as well as listening to music or YouTube in your down time.