With completely wireless earbuds, the rule is: when the battery fails, they have to be disposed of. Not so with the Fairbuds, that allow you to replace batteries in just a few seconds. Combined with a repairable design, the earbuds should therefore have an extremely long lifetime.
Wired 3.5mm jack.
Hear me out. I don’t use Bluetooth headphones. They don’t last the commute and work day.
With a jack you can listen and charge you phone at the same time and never worry about charging your headphones/iem.
If I need to use Bluetooth for connection I still can but overall better battery life
One thing sibling comments miss is how you can offer a jack & them, as a user, can still use whatever style you want & disregard the jack. It’s a cheap part that takes up some volume but not enough to force an entire redesign. But when manufacturers remove the jack, you are forced users into consuming either the wireless earbuds (that they all ‘conveniently’ sell branded) or cosuming a dongle which takes up the one charging port, are unruly in a way that puts additional stress on the port & make the wires hang awkwardly. Almost all other gear with audio that isn’t a modern smartphone includes the jack which means you can’t bring your existing gear—or it starts prompting every apparatus to start adding Bluetooth capabilities which includes the latency, flakiness, slow pairing but also the security & fingerprinting issues of keeping devices with Bluetooth always on in the first place. Even with replaceable batteries, you still need microcontrollers & firmware delivery.
That is to say, if Fairphone cared about sustainability, they can offer a better earbud on repairability (pressing doubt on the frequency-response curve tho), but they should still be offering a jack on their phones since wired headphones/IEMs are a more sustainable (& private & secure) personal audio option.
With removable batteries, you can swap in a fresh pair. Not ideal, but a possibility now.
Which ones are you referring to? What’s is your actual use time, like 8+ hours a day without charging? I use cheap generic MPOW ones I got for $40 and they easily last me at least 2 days
fun edit:
With wireless headphones you can also charge your phone and listen at the same time
So… I was more referring to a 3.5mm jack on the phone.
Commute time is a little over 2hours each way. Office use is 6-8 hours. Listening + calls and needing a microphone.
Would rather not to have to do the dance for multiple devices and chargers vs just one and a single usb input.
Some of the
bushesbusses and trains have a usb but you have to get lucky and then decide what needs charging more…the phone or the buds.Give me a wired option any day. Also used less battery power and sounds better.
edit… typo
Unrelated, but how do you tolerate that length of commute every day? I’d last 3 days before either looking for a new job or a new house.
Well… It’s not a commute that I need to do every day. Also I can (to some extent) work on that commute as the majority of it is on an inter-urban train. Timeboxing tasks to 30 mins or an hour can be quite productive. That said, having decent music and or noise blocking configured for your environment helps a lot. I highly recommend these guys - I have their full app and being able to dial just the right frequencies to deal with whatever is bugging you is amazing…
https://mynoise.net
That said, without my device and quality headphones/iem I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.
But any reason to prefer wireless is sort of moot because having a 3.5mm jack doesn’t preclude a wireless headphone feature.
Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that if I want to use wired headphones, I can’t charge my phone. Something I was able to do before, and now it’s a “privilege” for wireless users. It’s bullshit.
What phone do you have where you can’t charge it and use wired headphones?!
I might be out of the loop lol. Is that an iPhone thing? I use android.
I don’t own one. I had to buy one without a phone jack out of necessity (needed a phone right that second), but that’s what I’ve been hearing. You need a dongle to connect your wired earbuds, and while you’re using the dongle, you can’t charge your phone.
Has this changed?
You can buy a USB-C splitter or replace your current dongle with one that gives you the exact ports you want.
For example, the Belkin Rockstar is USB-C to USB-C+3.5mm jack. It’s $40 but there are a ton of cheaper options - JSAUX has a few for $15 or so on Amazon, and there are other no-name branded versions out there for around $10ish.
Thanks. I will consider them.
Problem solving: 2 in 1 Samsung USB Type C to 3.5mm Headphone and Charger Adapter for Galaxy S23/S22/S21/S24,60W PD USB C to Aux Audio Jack Dongle Cable Android Phone Fast Charging Cord for iPhone 15,Google Pixel 8/7a https://a.co/d/6dewjjB
JFC y’all are dumb. Just get a goddamn splitter. It’s not “privilege” that you get to keep using lead paint in your house, when you can do the same thing without the drawbacks or the lead.
What a weak ass analogy. A mini-jack doesn’t harm anybody.
If you add a 3,5mm jack to those small earbuds, there definitely won’t be any space for a battery. It’s one or the other.
I think he meant having the 3,5 mm jack in a phone.
Just to be pedantic; a battery is significantly larger than 2 tiny wires of copper. The battery is almost 50% of the volume in the earbud.
The buds don’t need a jack. Just the lead that connects to the phone or whatever. That takes no real space.