If we are talking about #firstworldproblems, “headphone hair” is up there. The curse of the urbane, city dweller, the spiky upturn is caused when the crown of your do meets the curve of your headband. It’s very “I woke up like this”. And not in a good way.

The solutions to the problem have traditionally been: shave all your hair off (extreme); grow your hair longer (again, quite extreme but hair flattening is easier to take with longer locks); or solve the problem with a hair-moulding dad cap. The latter could, of course, cause a double whammy of hat hair and headphone hair. I mean, you might as well never leave the house …

Naomi Campbell poses in a pair of i.am headphones. Photograph: I.am +

The new wireless iPhone7 is without an earphone socket, but not all compatible earphones exist without a headband. An unlikely saviour to the problem has come in the form of My Humps creator will.i.am. In his capacity as wearable tech designer he has founded i.am+, and made Buttons, tiny bluetooth earphones that connect together magnetically – and wouldn’t look out of place in Minority Report.

“Why should you have to take off your earphones when you finish listening to something and put them back in a box or bag, instead of just wearing them around your neck like jewellery?” he asks in the New York Times.

The idea here is that they look like a necklace you would wear when you are out and about. The reality is that they look a bit like an accessory worn by a robotic monk from the future. A robotic monk who loves Avicii but doesn’t have to worry about headphone hair.