Lifestyle
Review: Meze 11 Deco Designer Earphones
The attributes that Tesla owners are attracted to are known as the Tesla Lifestyle. But these things can be found in many places.
The hallmarks are simplicity in design and the desire to abandon the comprehensive and abbreviated and focus on the essential. I borrowed that last part from a 12th century Japanese philosopher. Seems to fit perfectly. Teslarati is always on the lookout for items that embody this approach. This week we ran across the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors.
Antonio Meze is a Romanian born industrial designer, creative thinker and musician with many awards in his portfolio. He founded Meze Headphones in 2012 in London because he was not happy with the spectrum of headphones on the market. He leveraged his design skills, ability to think beyond the “box” and passion for music to create a distinctive line of headphones and earbuds. Meze blends classic design with technology and encases them in wood, which brings out a richer, more natural sound. The line of headphones is absolutely beautiful. For this post I’ll focus on the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors.
DESIGN
The earbuds come in a round case that evokes a woman’s make-up compact. Pure white with a full zipper that’s well stitched on both the top and bottom. The only markings are the Meze logo, a custom designed element that seems to be a cross between a person, earbuds and a classic string instrument. The typeface is lowercase and cursive. Everything is a silver-gray. Subtle and compelling. Using white is a departure from the standard black we see from so many other manufacturers. My study workspace at home is always packed with technology and my wife ignores all of them. But when this case arrived and I left it on my desk, it attracted her like a moth to a flame.
Unzipping the clamshell reveals the earbuds, two sets of cushions in case you’ve got freakish-size ears and a silver hook allowing attachment to a backpack for fast access. Easy enough. Plug them in and spin up the tunes.
PERFORMANCE
When trying out speakers or headphones it’s important to mix up the sounds. Most people want to listen to familiar tracks to compare what they’re used to hearing. They will of course sound different, because it’s a different set-up. Do you hear something you’ve never heard before? That’s an indication. Don’t forget to try unfamiliar tracks and genres. Classical, jazz, soundtracks and even spoken word such as podcasts should be sampled. I also used the built-in mic and made some phone calls.
I was more than satisfied with the quality of the sound. Good highs and lows separation. I put them to the voice test by listening to the distinct vocal stylings of Peter Gabriel, Lana Del Rey, Agnes Obel, David Albarn and Goyte. The delivery was crisp and clean. The bass seemed to be a bit more pronounced than I normally listen to, but this is a minor complaint.
COMFORT
They also score well on the comfort level. I used them for over an hour while penning this post. At times I forgot I even had them in. The length of the cord is sufficient and the plug has a slight offset which serves as yet another design choice, but seems to allow for more material and perhaps more durable. Time will tell. As mentioned the built-in microphone was excellent for phone conversations, but lacks a volume control.
These are not meant for workout or sports. They remain in your ears under normal movements, but will not work well on your morning run. More quiet, calm spaces are perfect for these ear monitors. Obviously electing the correct ear cushion size makes a big difference. The R and L notations on the buds are difficult to find. I’m a stickler for following those directions as it aligns the music to how the artist intended to deliver it. Mr. Meze’s design sense likely pushed him to display these cues in a very subtle manner.
Meze calls these earbuds,
“An earphone for those who already have a musical identity.”
I’m used to noise canceling headphones, especially while traveling. That means lugging around a much larger case and remembering to have an extra battery. I’ve got a flight to NY tomorrow and I’m going to forego my usual headphones in favor of the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors. At $79.00, these earbuds are a bargain.
Photos taken with an Olympus E-510 SLR. Exploded view of the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors courtesy of Meze.
Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Elon Musk
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.
Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.
One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.
As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.
If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.
Tesla Diner is turning 1 on July 21st, so we’re throwing a party
Come swing by for a day full of fun:
– Cybercab on display
– Birthday menu
– @Tesla_Optimus
– Face painting for kids & adults
– Photo booth
– Servers on roller skates delivering your order
– Light show
– Skypad DJ… pic.twitter.com/TD8pOjihYs— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) July 18, 2026
SpaceX wants to catch Starship for launch 14, Elon Musk says
Tesla to open source Model S and Model X designs and software
