In 2022, Skullcandy joined forces with Doritos for a limited edition 4/20-inspired set of Dime earbuds — a nudge and a wink to the infamous munchies people experience after smoking weed. This year, the company is clearly done with making thinly-veiled references: its 4/20 project for 2023 is called the Grind Haze, a set of wireless earbuds that take their inspiration directly from the Indica-dominant Purple Haze strain of cannabis.
Only 3,000 of these Grind earbuds will be made and Skullcandy is selling them for $90 (a $10 premium over its non-weed-inspired Grind model).
And never has the word “bud” been more appropriate to describe a set of wireless headphones. “From dirtbags with dirtweed to a full-blown lifestyle movement, cannabis culture has come a long way and Skullcandy has been there for it all,” said Derek Steiner, director of global brand partnerships, Skullcandy, in a press release. “[…] it’s no coincidence our 420 limited-edition Grind Haze buds look good enough to smoke.”
In this case, “good enough to smoke,” means the Haze colors: a textured, silvery, sage green coloring with purple accents and orange highlights — designed to remind you of Purple Haze weed.
Assuming you have the good sense not to blaze them, the Grind Haze will reward you with a claimed nine hours of use per charge with a total of 40 hours when you include their charging case. They also feature Skullcandy’s in-house voice assistant tech known as Skull-IQ, which can accomplish a variety of tasks, with or without the addition of Amazon’s Alexa.
You can turn on a transparency mode to help you stay aware of your surroundings, and if you’re too baked to remember where you left them, you can use the built-in Tile tracking to find them. Of course, that would require you to remember that they have Tile tracking, so your mileage may vary.
Speaking of forgetting, if you forget you’re wearing them and accidentally step into the shower, they should be fine thanks to their IP55 water and dust resistance, although an accidental plunge in the pool will probably destroy them.