21 ms·
All valid annoyances, but I really think OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week just to get some perspective of how well AirPods "
by dt2m 5y ago
All valid annoyances, but I really think OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week just to get some perspective of how well AirPods "just work" compared to the competition.
Manually having to re-pair once in every blue moon, one earbud playing while the other isn't, no automatic device switching without having to go through the Settings app everytime, A/V desync, dodgy mic quality, earbuds not waking up correctly when removing them from the case, etc are all part of the non-AirPods Bluetooth experience.
I recently switched to a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones as I don't like the too-neutral AirPods Pro EQ curve, and while they sound excellent, the UX really leaves a bit to be desired.
- wdb 5y agoYes, I am daily struggling to connect my Sony MX4 headphones in a way the microphone also works so I can use it with Google Meetings. I have re-paired them already more often than my AirPods.
- jensensbutton 5y agoGet some jabra 75Ts. Problems solved.
- VadimPR 5y agoAgreed, Jabras work great without the issues listed here.
- carb 5y agoAlso agreed. I have been using Jabra earbuds daily for about four years and they would perfectly.
- stronglikedan 5y agoI had to return mine because the kept popping out, regardless of tip size or material. Now I have the Galaxy Buds Pro, which not only sound better to me (Jabras have IEM sound that I dislike), but also have none of the problems described. And while the do back out, they don't pop out, so it's manageable,
- Graffur 5y agoI use Android and bought the cheapest wireless/bluetooth earphones I could find. They "just work". When I open the charging case, they connect to my phone. The bad points are the sound quality and the lack of noise cancellation
- Causality1 5y agoNo noise cancellation is better than bad noise cancellation. The ANC on every set of earbuds and headphones under $200 I've tried is just a blast of white noise that makes it feel like someone is ramming cotton balls into my ears with a jackhammer.
- The_Colonel 5y agoI guess it depends on the use case. ANC on my FreeBuds (which are open type) is certainly limited, but it's a make or break difference in e.g. public transportation.
- toastal 5y agoAdditional anecdote, I have Sony XM3s and they are constantly having issues on both Android and Linux while being expensive and having excellent noise cancelation. They just worked for like the first 2-3 months but after a year, they've seemed to have gotten worse in basically all aspects (although interestingly switching from Sony's app to GadgetBridge for pairing and config, I seem to get better battery life). The connectivity has gotten so bad and I've caused so many interruptions in telemeetings that I bought a new pair of wired IEMs because I know analog actually just works (though my laptop lacks a headphone jack because of OEMs follow Apple's trends regardless of if the idea was good or bad).
- pnutjam 5y agoI have 2 sets from Monoprice, both pretty inexpensive. The cheapest ones don't have a very good microphone and they are tinny, but fine for podcasts. They also switch ears and pair easily like a champ. I can Pair either one, pull out the other one and let it pair, then put the first away, or leave them both in. I've been really impressed. The slightly more expensive pair will only pair the right one unless I create a specific profile for the left one. Switching from one to two is hit or miss and forget about switching from right to left (or vice-versa) without pausing everything for a minute or so.
- rodelrod 5y agoMaybe that audio jack wasn't such a bad idea after all.
- falcolas 5y agoIt must not be - even Apple has kept it on their laptops and desktops. Admitting past decisions were bad is hard.
- worldsayshi 5y agoOr maybe some people just need to fix their shit. Connecting audio devices to any OS, except maybe Android (dunno about iOS), is chaos. There is no inherently good reason to this.
- deltarholamda 5y agoAs much as people hate wires, I have to say that I much appreciate the "just works" aspect of it. Even wifi, while it has improved an awful lot over the years, is not nearly as reliable as the (albeit annoying) ethernet cable. I have the same issue with wireless keyboards and mice. The idea that I have to charge or put batteries into my mouse is infuriating.
- okl 5y agoAlso (generally) better sound quality (mic) and no latency/artifacting issues. Much cheaper as well.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mojuba 5y agoI usually keep my Magic Trackpad connected to USB because I know it switches to wired operation with no latency and 100% reliability. Also an option.
- falcolas 5y ago> not nearly as reliable as the (albeit annoying) ethernet cable. I keep one plugged into an inexpensive USB-C "dock" at my desk, and it's wonderful. That and wired headphones mean I always sound decent, don't break up when the microwave's in use, and never have to play the "can you hear me now" game.
- ashtonkem 5y agoOpposite for me. The wifi in my office beats out my USB C adapter by a factor of 4. Wifi is great, consumer grade routers are not though.
- falcolas 5y agoBeats... how? Bandwidth? Packet loss? Latency? One, that wifi bandwidth is being shared by everyone around you. Ideally, you'll only have about 4 peers for your given hotspot, but most companies are a bit more... frugal... than that. Two, that WiFi is going through those same routers. Just sayin'.
- Mikeb85 5y agoGot some Samsung Galaxy Buds Live for my birthday and they're honestly one of the best tech products I've ever used. The case recharges them, the setup with a phone was very easy and worked well, they pair perfectly with my Ubuntu laptop as well. Taking them out of the case they automatically activate, put them in the case automatically shut off. And so on. They do just work.
- gregd 5y agoI have the Galaxy Buds as well as the 2nd Gen AirPods. I cannot get the Buds to stay in my ears with any regularity because all of the weight of the Buds, is out at the end that is not in your ear. The AirPods have all of their mass inside of your ear and stay put.
- humantorso 5y agoSecond this, Samsung Galaxy Buds just work. They fit comfortably and imo look good.
- jcranberry 5y agoFeel the same with the Galaxy Buds Plus. My SO has airpods pro and I find to be the main thing they have over the GB+ is their talk through is vastly superior and the noise canceling is also very good. The thing it doesnt have is a decent battery life.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoY’know what headphones really did “just work” though? Wired headphones, circa 2017. Their battery life was infinite. You could “pair” them in seconds to any device with a headphone jack, aka any device, because we’re in 2017. Oh, and they were cheaper and better for the environment. Courage, indeed. And this is why I’m currently typing my comment on an iPhone 6S...
- duxup 5y agoI think it goes to show how much “just works enough “ consumers are happy to tolerate for wireless over other advantages of wired. I remember early consumer wi- fi was just garbage compared to wired and… we still used it happily. Granted sometimes we go back… my cars Bluetooth is so maddening I use a cable instead.
- falcolas 5y agoFWIW, the proliferation of video calls over my laptop has pushed me back to wired internet at my desk. Combined with wired headphones - I have so much less latency than any of my co-workers. It's nice to not have to play the "can you hear me" song and dance.
- ashtonkem 5y agoI did that until I updated the wifi in my house. There’s a combination wired/wireless wire plate under my desk, but I don’t bother wiring it into my work computer, because the wifi is faster than what the cheap USB C adapter can offer.
- falcolas 5y agoFaster and lower latency are not the same things. > the cheap USB C adapter I have to ask, what kind of internet speeds do you have where even a cheap wired adapter can't beat it? That's pretty incredible.
- 5y ago
- huntermeyer 5y agoMPOW M30 just work for me.
- blinkingled 5y ago> OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week Extensive user of various BT headphones on Android for few years now - went through everything from cheap Corwin E7 to Galaxy Buds to Bose QC to latest one Sony WH-1000XM4 - had minor issues with the Galaxy Buds - had to wiggle them in the case to get the charging going but other than that all of the other ones work really well - Sony being the king of the hill - even two devices work as expected and the sound quality is good.
- klmr 5y agoI’m a huge fan of the Sony high-end line, and am currently using the WH-1000XM4 myself. They’re excellent, but they do share quite a few of the annoyances listed in the OP article (in particular the delay when going from call to audio and vice versa, and the audio quality degradation; though, truth be told, I believe that’s a macOS issue), and they have their own annoyances. Most prominently, the utterly useless “second device pairing” audio message that plays for a full four seconds and drowns out whatever else you were listening to. I routinely need to ask people on a call to repeat what they said because of this. Yet Sony arrogantly states that this message is somehow “important” and therefore can’t be disabled.
- blinkingled 5y agoOh yeah I forgot about the second device pairing message - definite annoyance! I actually have used it with work macOS laptop (Big Sur) a few times but did not notice anything odd.
- TurningCanadian 5y agoI believe the audio quality degradation when using the mic is a limitation of Bluetooth bandwidth. It switches to a different profile capable of sending and receiving audio instead of only receiving.
- klmr 5y agoYes, it switches to a different audio codec, that’s unavoidable due to bandwidth limitations. However, macOS insists on using a worse codec than necessary (SCO instead of SBC) and, at least with my MX4 headphones, this badly scrambles audio, at least intermittently. I’ve stopped using the headphone microphone because it was unbearable. I’ve tried playing with the bluetooth settings but nothing seems to fix this.
- yowlingcat 5y agoAdding another voice in the choir of "just use wired headphones" -- I have never had a pair of wireless Bluetooth earphones that make sense from a usability standpoint and at this point I am pretty soured on the whole asset class. My wired headphones just work and give me none of these issues!
- tssva 5y agoI have a cheap pair of SoundPEATS I got off of Amazon for $23. They don't suffer these issues. They "just work" with my Android phone and Thinkpad running Windows.
- Waterluvian 5y agoI had these $20 pair of Anker bluetooth earbuds and they just worked. I paired them once and they were effortless to use for years on my iPhone. Just hold a button down for 3 seconds and they're on and ready in seconds. They even went through the wash, twice. But then I lost them.
- IshKebab 5y agoI have Google's Pixel Bud A series and they have none of these issues to be honest. By far the biggest issue is that they don't let you connect to more than one device simultaneously. Fine if you only use them with your phone, but a pain if you want to use them with a computer too.
- anderber 5y agoSame here. I love my Pixel Buds. However, they are setup on all my devices, I just have to go and pick to connect depending on which device I want to use it with. Not sure if there's a way around that, for any Bluetooth device.
- IshKebab 5y agoI don't see why it couldn't just maintain connections to two devices simultaneously and mix the audio. I'm pretty sure there are Bluetooth headphones that do do that. Battery life is the only reason I can think of but they should still give the option.
- cochne 5y agoAlmost all of the issues you described I have also experienced with AirPods. Sometimes going into the Bluetooth menu and selecting them is not even enough to convince them to play audio from my phone. I had to get out of bed and turn off the Bluetooth on my laptop.
- slingnow 5y agoSo your argument for why Airpods suck is that "hey, everything else sucks too"? I thought Apple was supposed to be a shining beacon of simplicity, hence they should absolutely "just work".
- cainxinth 5y agoI bought my first pair of Airpod Pros recently. The previous two years I was using Bluedio T Elf 2 that I paid $17 for on Amazon. The sound quality and feature set is obviously much better with the Airpods, but not 10X better despite costing 10X the price. The Bluedios were better for podcasts than music due to their middling sound quality, but they paired properly most of the time and worked without issue.
- awestroke 5y agoFunny, I've had all those problems and more with my Airpods Pro. The most annoying one is that if I pair my Airpods to my mac, they stop auto connecting to my android phone even when they are not in range of my mac. Probably by design
- philistine 5y agoHopefully all those problems will go away one day. Apple is rumoured to be working on a new wireless connection to achieve lossless quality, which would mean a more modern interaction. The Airpods don't solve any Bluetooth problems, they hide them.
- freeflight 5y agoI've had a pair of Huawei FreeLace Pro for about a year now, using them with an iPhone, and the only issue out of those you described, I experienced, was the "re-pair once in every blue moon", which is an issue that seems to be pretty universal across bluetooth devices. They support multiple devices, but no automatic switching, it's just a button short-cut to switch between them, works quite nicely for switching from my iPhone to my iPad and back.
- hatware 5y agoMy airpods have constant issues. Maybe you should take notice that Apple's products don't have the simplicity of setup they were once known for...
- rsfayez 5y agoSony bluetooth is wonderful! The pair is lasting me the longest any earphone every have
- elif 5y agoi dont have any of these issues with galaxy buds pro...
- thereddaikon 5y agoI actually don't have any of those problems with galaxy buds live but absolutely hate the touch controls. They are so inconsistent. Sometimes it registers a touch. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it does but doesn't actually perform the action to I have so do it again.
- 015a 5y agoOwning Sony XM4s, Galaxy Buds Pros, Bose QC, and Airpods Pros: that's an extreme take. All of these devices "just work" and "don't just work" in nearly the same ways. The microphone quality is a tin can on all of them. Among my friends in Discord, anytime someone logs on with a shit mic the meme is "dude are you using airpods?!" They usually are. Or any earbeans. Because they're all bad. The AV desync is an equal issue on both of them. BT headphones are basically useless for any realtime application (think: playing a digital piano). This may just be me, but: I have no idea what the "automatic device switching" airpods feature is. I have a Mac. I have an iPhone. If I want to switch my Airpods from iPhone to the Mac, I have to go to the bluetooth menu in the toolbar, and click the Airpods on the Mac... just like the XM4s. To go back, I go into the bluetooth quick settings menu and click Airpods Pros. Its exactly the same. Like, ever since they announced this feature, I feel like either the world entered a collective psychosis on what this feature does, or I'm getting old and I'm missing something, but its exactly the same (and, not that bad; exactly how many steps I'd expect to switch an audio output device). The Airpods are certainly very nice during the initial pair process, but that's a one-time thing on both devices. The scary part to me is: the APPs do have slightly better UX on Apple devices. And it isn't just the value-add features like "automatic" switching and spatial audio; I do experience slightly more AV desync on the XM4s on iPhone. The XM4s sometimes won't connect to my Mac. But these issues are entirely and totally Apple device specific; I also regularly use the XM4s with a Galaxy S21 Ultra and Windows 11 PC, and they're just where I'd expect BT headphones to land there. I really think this is an "Intel Mac situation", where Apple is intentionally ruining (or ignoring, and thus leaving to languish) the experience of integrating non-Apple devices so they can sell their accessories. Then, even educated customers start saying "the APPs just work better" even though what's really happening is, the iPhone is just working worse with non-APPs, and Apple is pushing their monopoly once again. And I say all that coming to the conclusion: If friends ask me what earbeans to buy, if they have an iPhone, just buy APPs. They have better UX, in very small but nonetheless extant ways, even if I'm convinced it's because of Apple's monopoly control over consumer devices. Maybe more-so: they have a very neutral, unoffensive sound profile. Its boring. But the quality is competitive with any other bean out there, which is to say: great. It works for nearly any type of music, and no one will complain about it. None of the other "tech company beans" can compete with the APPs. Some are cheaper. All of them suck. This meaning: Samsung, Microsoft, Google beans. But if you're on Android; the APPs are still a top 3 choice. However, I'd add: if you want a neutral sound profile, the Bose QC beans (non-sport) have better noise cancellation and comparable audio quality. If you'd welcome or accept a more bass-heavy sound signature and larger (yet still comfortable) in-ear profile: the Sony XM4s are the best beans money can buy.
- cush 5y agoBluetooth is such a fussy, unreliable protocol. I’d love to have a new, modern protocol that simply requires some kind of basic, physical connection to pair two devices. That way, I’d always know exactly which two devices are connected and a third couldn’t break it so easily.
- projektfu 5y agoOf course I expect that it would lead to something with the unreliability of Bluetooth and the requirement that you physically touch the devices together every time it loses its connection.
- cush 5y agoRight, for sure. I was thinking more like a wire or cable that physically connected the two devices. If the wire is connected, then they can share audio, else they can’t.
- computerex 5y agoI don’t know, my experience with Samsung’s buds plus and buds live has been flawless.
- windexh8er 5y ago> I recently switched to a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones as I don't like the too-neutral AirPods Pro EQ curve, and while they sound excellent, the UX really leaves a bit to be desired. I, personally, don't understand this. I'm a bit of a stickler for making sure my audio quality is good. I validate the products I'm using sound good using local device recording as well as HD echo test numbers before I use them during real life meetings. I'm on the phone at least a couple hours a day and it's baffling how many people assume that their AirPods sound good. The TL;DR of it is - they don't. But with respect to the "UX" side of the house, I'm curious what you really need? I own a number of Jabra and Sony products that I can - pull out of their cases on any day at any point in time and they will work with no input from me. Do people fiddle with EQ and other settings often? The only thing I really do once I get the audio setup is make sure the firmware is up to date from time to time.
- easton 5y agoHow many devices do you use your wireless headphones with? If it's >1 (or maybe 2), the experience is horrid in my experience even with the AirPods unless (in the AirPods case) they are all Apple devices with logic in the OS for handing off the connection. I could not use my AirPods with my old Windows laptop because everytime it got in range it would steal them away from any device, even sometimes when in sleep (the Surface Pro's crappy sleep mode may have had something to do with it).
- bart_spoon 5y ago> Manually having to re-pair once in every blue moon, one earbud playing while the other isn't, no automatic device switching without having to go through the Settings app everytime, A/V desync, dodgy mic quality, earbuds not waking up correctly when removing them from the case, etc are all part of the non-AirPods Bluetooth experience. Many of these have been part of my experience with both my Airpods and Airpod Pros.
- tomcam 5y agoMy AirPods Max pair horribly with my iPhone 13 mini, much worse than a pair of $20 Bluetooth earphones that of course sound much worse.
- SirFatty 5y agoI have cheapy TOZO from Amazon, and honestly have none of those issues. At my desk, I toggle between the laptop and phone without issue...
- sokoloff 5y agoI have a couple pairs of other "quite cheap" BT earbuds from Amazon and they're all quite good ergonomically. They paired easily, stay paired, charge automatically, etc. I don't use them as a microphone very often (as I have an arm-mounted Blue Yeti), but when I've had to use them, they also worked without me getting complaints from the other side. Maybe Airpods are wildly better somehow, but I can't see how much better they could be versus the totally acceptable experience I've had with the cheap ones.
- finder83 5y agoThat's all part of the Airpods experience for me. Randomly have to reinsert into the case to get both earbuds working, devices I've connected to won't work if I've connected more devices, if I reboot from Linux to windows I have to drop them and re-pair them (I assume they pair based on a device id?), sometimes they don't charge but it's impossible to tell because when I open them it just shows yellow. Maybe it's because I have the first gen and no apple devices, but I really don't care for them. My wife's soundcores work great. My Bose over-ear are a much better experience.
- smoldesu 5y agoPretty much all multipoint Bluetooth headsets these days "just work". Hell, the only real upgrade they could make is muxing multiple audio channels from multiple devices. Beyond that, I honest to god don't see how Bluetooth headsets could really be improved.
- lijogdfljk 5y ago> one earbud playing while the other isn't, Funny, i deal with this nearly every day with my AirPods Pro. Often the pods do this when switching from high bandwidth listening to low bandwidth for mic/headset usage.