Oakley Thump MP3 Sunglasses
The world’s first (and last?) “digital music eyewear,” Oakley Thump was originally released at the height of MP3-mania in 2004, starting at $395 for a 128MB model. (Perspective: Apple was selling 40GB iPods for $399 at that time.) In fairness to Oakley, which makes extremely high-quality lenses, introducing eyesores that also plugged into your ears was surprisingly successful. The original Thumps gave way to the more comfortable Thump 2 model in 2005, the higher-capacity Thump Pro in 2006, and the more subtle Split Thump in 2007. But subtlety was never a hallmark of Oakley, which giddily branded everything that came with this device, right down to the USB-cable. Given that today Apple is poised to kill the headphone jack on its iPhones, Oakley’s claim that these goggles meant the end of wires was actually ahead of its time. But it also offered models in white camo, and there’s likely no age when that color scheme will be in style.
