Prolonged gaming sessions often cause discomfort from headphone weight, excessive clamping force, and heat buildup, particularly among gamers who play for extended periods. Additionally, market analysis reveals a gap between two product categories: premium headphones that emphasise craftsmanship and acoustic fidelity but overlook long-term ergonomic comfort, and gaming headphones that prioritise performance and comfort but lack the refined materiality and aesthetic sophistication of luxury audio brands. Most premium gaming headphones also overlook how weight is distributed and how heat is managed. As a result, even high-performance designs can become uncomfortable during prolonged use.

To address these problems, we have designed Levitas, an innovative “featherweight” gaming headphones designed and engineered for high-casual gamers. Levitas aims to deliver a perception of “levitating ear cups” by strategically redistributing weight from the head to the shoulders and spreading the weight across a larger area. This along with ergonomic design features guarantee greater comfort over long gaming sessions. Levitas also incorporates a sleek design to enhance overall appeal.

Levitas utilises a traditional headband, directed to the back of the neck. This headband ensures cup stability, consistent contact  pressure and redirects the weight to the shoulders. This removes painful pressure points on the head and ensures hair is never messed up. The headband also incorporates cutouts to maximise adjustability for earcup position.

To tackle the loss of motion freedom associated with designs of our nature, we developed a novel dual 4-bar linkage neck support mechanism to conform to users’ neck movement trajectory whilst still providing structural rigidity to support the earcup weight.

The neckband is ergonomically contoured to the user’s neck, providing a broad surface area that helps distribute weight more evenly across the shoulders and reduce pressure on the head. It also offers physical space to house components such as batteries and PCBs, which are typically integrated into headphone earcups. In doing so, the neckband serves as a stabilizing anchor that enhances balance and comfort, supporting the overall structure of the headset during prolonged use.

Users would first wear the neckband, similar to how a neck fan is worn, before placing the earcups over their ears. The design intentionally borrows familiar gestures and affordances from both neck fans and conventional headphones to promote intuitive use
and increase acceptance of this new product archetype.

In summary, Levitas opens wider possibilities in terms of material choice and technological features and functionality. With additional space in the neckband and at least 200g of weight capacity for additional components, the Levitas platform can incorporate additional features such as a microphone in the neckband, shifting of batteries and controls to the neckband and the implementation of an active air cooling system for the earcups.