Headphone Reviews

The Parrot Zik is an unbelievably complex headphone. It includes four microphones (2 inward facing, and two outward facing) which are used for noise canceling. The two outside mics do double duty in noise canceling and as mics for cellphone voice pick-up. There is another microphone mounted in the ear cushion, which is summed together with the outside mics for voice in calls. There's a second sensor in the earpad that detects skin vibrations to tell whether or not the headphones are on your head, and commands the player to pause when no vibration is sensed. (Though I wasn't told what type of sensor this is, it is quite sensitive.)

The right ear capsule has a capacitive touch sensor that allows you to control the player with touch gestures. The left ear capsule has an NFC (Near Field Communication) sensor that allows rapid Bluetooth pairing with NFC capable phones. And, of course, there is a Bluetooth radio chip to provide wireless communications with your smartphone or other Bluetooth device.

The audio brain of the headphone is a DSP chip that provides: basic correction for the sound of the headphones; noise canceling; user controllable equalization (though an app on a hand-held device); and head related transfer function and room acoustics simulation for audio virtualization. And there's a microprocessor to get everything working together.

The Zik also contains a rechargeable battery to power the on-board computer and digital signal processing electronics. Let's have a look at the features one at a time.

Touch Control

The outside of the right earpiece is a touch sensitive panel. By sliding your finger up or down you can raise or lower the volume of the music. Swiping forward advances the track; swiping backward goes back to the beginning of the current track; swiping back twice goes to the previous track. Tap the earpiece to pause.

The volume control on the headphone is separate from the volume control on your smartphone and both can be adjusted independently. I turned the volume on the phone up all the way and then controlled the headphone volume with the earpiece.

When the headphones senses an incoming call, the music is muted and you get an audible tone indicating the incoming call. A short tap will allow you to answer the phone, a long tap (2 sec +) will reject the call and return you to music.

I found this touch control very convenient and intuitive, though on rare occasions I would mistakenly touch it while readjusting the cans on my head.

Remove Headphones to Pause

There is a vibration sensor in the right ear cushion that senses even the tiniest vibration while resting on your cheek. When the headphones are removed, vibrations cease, and loss of signal from this sensor causes the headphones to pause. In all the literature for the Parrot Zik, this feature is demonstrated by someone putting the headphones around their neck. This didn't work for me as I have a fat neck and my chin would be touching the earpad. I suppose this feature might work for thinner folks. Taking the headphones off and putting them on a table did activate the pause feature reliably.

The Parrot App

Much of the function of these headphones is controlled through a companion app, which is available for iOS and Android mobile platforms. It allows the user to enable and control the noise canceling, "Concert Hall Effect" (headphone virtualization), equalizer, and to check the battery, firmware and app version, and get help information.

This app is critical to the function of the headphones as you simply can't enable or control the headphone without it. I'll speak about the effectiveness of the various features in the "Sound Quality" section of this review on the next page, but I will say here that all the features were very simple and easy to use.

It also brings up an important issue for purchasers of this phone: it's upgradable! As of this writing current Zik firmware rev is Version 1.02, Android app is 1.0, iOS app is 1.2. I think this is very cool because, as we're about to see, this product is still a bit buggy.

Buggyness
I had two types of problems with the Zik that are likely due to software bugs. While paired to my iPhone 4 running iOS 6, I experienced numerous short dropouts, which seemed to occur when I was doing things on the phone. Dropouts don't seem to happen if I leave the phone alone. I experienced no dropouts on my Galaxy Nexus Android phone.

The second issue is a bit more serious as I can't seem to figure out a systematic way to make the symptom happen or to fix it. Every once in a while it seems the Zik will lose, or partially lose, pairing with the device being used. You won't be able to control or listen to the device, but when you check the Bluetooth settings it appears to remain paired. Turning on and off the headphones, or unpairing and repairing the Zik does not usually fix the problem. You can remove the battery from the Zik for a hard reset, which seems to solve the problem reliably. But I've also magically resolved it by fidgeting around with various things like pairing and powering things on and off, but I can't seem to find a pattern to the solution. One trend I've seen is the problem usually happens when I'm testing things out and have multiple media apps open simultaneously. I would think problems like this will be fixed in further app and firmware updates.

Though not really a bug, the Zik lasted between 6 and 10 hours for me per battery charge. This is a bit short, and I would highly recommend users purchase a second battery.

Using the Zik with a Laptop
The Zik will pair with a laptop or other non-phone Bluetooth-enabled devices, but you won't be able to control the features of the headphone in the app. As best I can tell, it does remember what its last settings were, and will retain these settings when subsequently paired with a laptop. Pause, volume, and tracking control will still work.

A workaround for this it to leave the Zik paired to a phone with the app running, and use the included headphone cable to attach to the computer's headphone jack. This will bypass the Bluetooth audio and let you listen to the music from your computer while still controlling the Zik from from your phone. Amazingly, if your phone rings while wired to your computer, you will be able to answer it by tapping on the earpiece. Unfortunately, when the call is complete and you hang up, the music will not return until you unplug and reinsert the cable at the earpiece of the Zik.

Phew! Let's go on to the sound of the Zik in the various modes of operation...