The comments on this post are entirelly missing the point. Jesus christ lemmy. Yes, we know you like 3.5 mm jacks. That is not the point. The point is that FairPhone launched earphones with ANC with replaceable batteries. This is good!
We’re allowed to want both.
Yes we are and that’s okay we’re not against headphone jacks, it’s just that this post right here is about wireless earbuds
I think part of the conversation is about how they got rid of the headphone jack shortly before releasing these. While it is good that these exist, it seems like they exist as a result of a popular anti-consumer business choice that people don’t like, and is thus tied to that choice.
I did not think people would perceive it like that, and didn’t realize the jack was phased out before bluetooth ear buds were a thing, as I myself had a phone with a headphone jack until at least a couple years later, and by the time I got a phone without a headphone jack, I didn’t need it anymore.
I for one have been very happy with wireless headphones because with my job, the wires would get caught on stuff too easily, or I had to run the wires through my shirt, and they barely had enough slack for me to turn my head while my phone was in my pocket. (and btw the job I have is that’s unsupervised where I can have an ear bud in while working)
Counterpoints:
- Good IEM-s don’t really need ANC. If the silicone tip doesn’t isolate enough you can use foam tips that basically function like hearing protection earplugs.
- No battery is even better than replaceable battery.
- Wired IEM-s never get obsolete. At worst you’ll need to replace the silicone tips from time to time, or the cable and today even 20€ Chinese IEM-s have replaceable cables. With good care wired IEM-s can last decades.
If you don’t think you need ANC you’ve never experienced good ANC, even the best passive noise isolation won’t quiet down the sound of a full cafeteria or bus.
No wired iems will never be obsolete, but I will just be leaving them at my desk where the downsides over wireless are less.
I’ve used passive noise isolation earbuds that work better than any ANC. This one time I took them off after a long flight, only to realize that a toddler was crying behind me.
Edit: lol at the downvotes! https://maxrockearbuds.com/
I think it would be fair to doubt your point, could you share which earbuds you were using and how you were using them? I think the disagreement here will also stem from the fact that IEMs + playing music is pretty great “active noise cancellation” in itself.
When I listen to a podcast on my IEMs I hear quite a lot of the outside world, when I do the same with ANC headphones on I hear much less.
Not the same guy, but I don’t have trouble blocking outside noise with Etymotic ER3SE earbuds. They do go insanely deep into my ear though.
Mine also get quite buried, like earplugs. And they’re still comfortable.
And damn, yours must be really nice at that price!
I got them on sale for around $110. They might be expensive for wired earbuds, but still cheaper than nice wireless earbuds, including the Fairbuds this post is about. Also, the cables are replaceable in case they ever get damaged.
Fair enough. I’ve updated my original answer.
ANC makes the baby crying more pronounced & that’s more annoying than the rumble of a bus. +1 to passive noise cancelation on silicone tips. A bit more in general gets thru, but the it isn’t amplifying voices & other loud sounds. Brains are pretty good at turning out the rabble of a cafeteria or transportation.
Yeah, idk why people are downvoting you so hard. There are some seriously good passive noise cancellation buds out there. Kind of insane when you actually try them.
So you basically said there’s no need for fair wired headphones because cheap 20€ chinese wired ones perfectly serve that market?
Even better that fairphone builds true wireless earbuds with all those fair features, because there is no alternative there already.
That’s a strawman and you know it. OP basically said that we want 3.5mm jacks.
On true wireless earbuds? How?
No, no. We want 3.5mm jacks for wired earphones. Whether there is a fairphone version of wired earphones or not is irrelevant.
The whole thread is about earbuds?! Where do jacks on phones come in all of a sudden?
Then why are you commenting on this “irrelevant” sub-thread?
Well, my point is that we wouldn’t need wireless headphones if Fairphone still had a headphone jack
I don’t think that would fit on the earbuds.
Not to mention we already had repairable wired headphones that we can’t use now if we get a fairphone.
Not when they’re twice the price is decent Sonys
You can get a decent pair of sonys for €150? The conversion rate must be better than I thought!
Even the $300+ pairs are hardly ‘decent’. The sound signature is all over the place & overly bassy.
Can you replace the battery at the Sonys?
Yes. I just replaced the ones in my wife’s Sony earphones by following a step by step guide on ifixit. Cost me $15 for the batteries including shipping, and they’re not even any sort of exotic type or size.
Edit: okay just read the article. Guess these are a lot more convenient to replace than the Sony ones.
That’s the point. If you have devices where parts can be replaced easily and, ideally, inexpensively, I’m happy to spend a little more money.And support the project.
My hot take: does it matter? How often do people actually need to replace earbud batteries? I’m guessing it’s almost never.
Every 2-3 years in my experience, I’m on my 5th or 6th wireless headset in the last decade, and most of those were replaced because the battery life went to shit. And I’ve tried multiple brands with no material differences in overall life, but I also use mine throughout the day every day and regularly wear them until I’m forced to charge them.
If you don’t have a chance, or it’s made difficult by the design, few people will do it.But if it’s easy, maybe more people will do it. Show people a better alternative and some will take it. If the path is good, more will take it. That’s how you change the world.
Every earbud I had broke at least once during their warranty period. My linkbuds S recently broke the third time. Only one of my issues was battery related, but its still nice to have the option to use them after the warranty ends.
That isn’t the point, the cost is.
Yes, it is good, but this step forward is only the result of an arguably bigger step backward, which is why people are bringing it up.
Let’s not forget this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdL0StldJM
Wired headphones do not have the need for replaceable batteries.
And get caught on everything.
I can’t be bothered with the inconvenience of wires. Bluetooth quality is good enough for what I need it for, and the convenience of simply putting them on gives me sound is hard to beat.
I have a pair of noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones (not buds) from 2008 that still work. Battery life isn’t what it was, but whatever - they work fine for how I use them (as one pair of several). I could replace the battery if I felt like it, just not worth the effort.
But I get that some people prefer the wired for their use-case.
The simple point is, no one forces you to use wires. Bluetooth has been a thing for decades.
But basically every (yes some exceptions) company that makes phones forced you to use wireless ones.
And in the case of Fairphone it is just simply hypocritical.
All my phones always had headphone jacks, even though I prefer wireless and put those rubber nub dust protectors in them, so they don’t get filthy. Nobody forced me to do anything. I had multiple brands. Wiko, Samsung, Honor, etc…
You can get 3.5mm to (whatever usb port) that will as far as I know work in every phone. Just because it doesn’t have a dedicated port doesn’t mean you can’t wire in your headphones.
I much prefer it this way, if you want to wire you can, if you don’t you don’t have to have an extra useless port on your device.
Edit
Lol, bring on your down votes. I bet if you surveyed a hundred random people on the street if they really want a headphone port on your phone and are committed to using it you’d get less than ten people. It’s not realistic to support every legacy hardware function on a modern device because a few tech enthusiasts want it, especially when there’s a very easy way to support it.
Or the port could exist and you just don’t use it, then we don’t need adapters!
It’s not just a hole, you need to reserve the space to house the inserted jack, you need to source or build the housing and build something to convert the signal to digital. That costs money and space for a feature hardly anyone uses. These resources are simply better used elsewhere.
It’s a very small amount of space. When it was first removed the space was still there just empty. There’s phones that do exist that have SD card slots and headphone jacks. The hardware required is very very cheap, especially at scale, so cost is a non-factor. For such minimal resources, who wouldn’t want the option of more features? There’s plenty of features of smartphones that most people don’t use, it doesn’t mean we should remove them to the detriment of the people who do.
You can get 3.5mm to (whatever usb port) that will as far as I know work in every phone. Just because it doesn’t have a dedicated port doesn’t mean you can’t wire in your headphones.
not if you want to charge it as well.
Lol, bring on your down votes. I bet if you surveyed a hundred random people on the street if they really want a headphone port on your phone and are committed to using it you’d get less than ten people, definitely less than 20. It’s not realistic to support every legacy hardware function on a modern device because a few tech enthusiasts want it, especially when there’s a very easy way to support it.
If you’re the only option with a headphone jack that’s a guaranteed 10% of the market buying your device. More if you also include other things tech enthusiasts want that are no longer widely available.
Yes you can: https://a.co/d/dvX8HjP
That’s the beauty of usb, it’s capable of expanding to suit your needs
Simply put, if companies determined the market need for 3.5mm port was valuable enough they’d leave it on there. They want to sell product and 3.5mm is not a feature enough customers care about to justify it’s existence. If you really want it, you have USB options or some phone models that support it: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Best-phones-with-a-headphone-jack-Google-Pixel-Samsung-Galaxy-LG-and-more_id124459
Simply put, if companies determined the market need for 3.5mm port was valuable enough they’d leave it on there.
The reason it’s not “valuable” is that they want to force people to buy expensive earbuds every year when they crap out. This is demonstrated by the fact that none of these phones that have removed it have added anything new in it’s place and they’ve only gotten more expensive. Practically every phone on the market is just a copycat phone, camera, social media browsing device. Maybe a few have a stylus. The only thing that differentiates them is specs. My 6 year old phone has more features than anything available today and I dread finally reaching the point where my work apps stop functioning due to it’s age and I have to downgrade to some garbage that can’t do half the things I used to.
If you buy crappy headphones they might crap out every year. I’ve got the same pair of Jabra 65t that I bought in 2018 and they work amazing 6 years later. If Apple or Samsung or Google forced you to use their buds I’d agree with your position of being forced but they don’t and saying all buds die in a year is absurd.
You’re supposing every tech/audio enthusiast here wants the same shitty setup as the masses? The fact is there is basically one brand still offering headphone jacks in a flagship that you can unlock … where the point of Android was all the delicious innovations of each OEM. But they saw how profitable selling branded earbuds could be so now you have next to 0 options.
Strange how I’ve been using wired headphones with my phones until two years ago, even though I haven’t had a phone with a headphone jack since 2017…
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Fair, that’s your choice, and please don’t be aggressive about it, because it gets very annoying very quickly. Tried not to type out this second part, but couldn’t.
But our preference is not a choice. Because phone manufacturers have decided for ourselves.
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I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
But our point is that having a little extra hole in your phone isn’t going to matter to you.
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I didn’t reply to the insulin pump part, sorry. It was toward the other part, which implied to me that there are people who don’t want to deal with cables, so no one should be about to use them.
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No one’s disputing the utility of wireless. But it’s not harming anyone to have a device with both mini-jack and bluetooth; the way it was for nearly 2 decades without any complaint.
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More options is always better.
There was no reason to remove them back then and there is no reason to remove them now.
A follow-up video “Why I was wrong about fairphone” by Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAogtqyN22M
Still critical of lack of audio jack but praises FairPhone for including list of all components and board view of where each part is located and a complete schematic. In comparison to other phones manufacturers that’s night and day of repair-ability.
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Yep. I refuse to buy a FairPhone for this simple reason: I hate bluetooth. It means I have to buy a new expensive device to get audio quality that’s worse than before and requires batteries again. Fuck that.
I also find it ridiculous that they call themselves “fair” but making bluetooth buds probably increases pain and suffering, because more materials have to be used to make them than a simple jack headphone.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I don’t know about the fairness of this particular company but by that rationale nothing can ever be fair, just by existing we increase the suffering. Its how the world is.
Think headphones jacks don’t cause suffering at some point in the chain?
Not that I’m disagreeing, just not sure how things would get named under this specific scheme.
Does it assume that it’s generally understood that everything is a little harmful in some way, so as long as you don’t claim otherwise, it’s cool or would everything need to be measured on some sort of average harmfulness scale and then include the rating in the title.
Like “Horrendously harmful Apple” or “Mildly harmful Colgate”
A bit hyperbolic perhaps.
Genuinely not trying to start a fight, actually interested in what you think would be a good way of doing this, as I’ve occasionally pondered it myself and never come up with a good answer.
Incidentally, this is one of the core plotlines to later seasons of “The good place”
Incidentally, this is one of the core plotlines to later seasons of “The good place”
Aaaay! Was going to say that too 👍
My only point is that we can work to minimize suffering. Making it necessary to purchase a new accessory adds more suffering than using an old accessory.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
That’s reasonable
if you hate bluetooth. USB C dongle earbuds are quite impressive nowadays like JBL or anker. no pairing
That’ll have to be the middle ground should I ever be forced to buy a phone without an audio jack.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
People keep whining about this but honestly people who listen to music with wired headphonea are a small fraction of a 1%. And they probably have this data from their telemetry.
They are now a small fraction cause this trend is already 8 years old.
Don’t wanna be a whiner but wireless in ears never last long enough for me. I’m forced to stop using them after a while because they need to be charged. Even a 2 and a half hour phone call is enough to deplete them. This is a non existing problem with wired ones
I have yet to use a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle for my phone that hasn’t gone bust in my pocket in a few months. Probably time to see about a cable for the earphones that terminates in USB-C on the phone end, but that was difficult to search for.
I love my wired ones, and have been nursing some BT earbuds for years, but it’s hard to use wired and not to move to BT anymore without buying a phone specifically for the 3.5mm jack.
Get a portable dac amp so you can connect your wired headphone over usb-c and upgrading its sound quality at the same time.
Hyperbole aside, I’d still be worried that any cable physically connected to my phone would break the port over time - mostly because that has happened to me in the past with multiple devices.
I guess there is no way to escape the extra stress to the port. Maybe using this kind of detachable magnetic adapter can help with reducing the strain? They don’t conform with usb specification though, so while it may reduce strain to your port, it may carry another risk like making it easier to accidentally shorting some exposed pins.
Nice, I did not know such a connector existed - that will be useful for completely different and unrelated use cases.
While I had toyed with the idea of a portable, Japanese - made DAC for a while, I switched to Bluetooth headphones years ago. Started out with a cheap Philips headset for $50, later on got the Bose QC 35 II (still my daily driver when outside) and finally worked my way up to the Sony WH-1000XM5.
I did not realize how nice active noise cancelation is. Plus, the frequency reproduction of the XM5 with LDAC enabled is absolutely fine.
On the cons side, you’re walking around with $300 - $400 on your head, which is an absolutely luxury, plus you’ll get headphones that perform equally well in the sound department (minus the excellent ANC and freedom from cables) for a lot less.
Actually, get one with more pins. The one above is for charging only.
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For the moment I’m on a budget so DACs are not in my budget. They seem fun though, and I do love my hi-fi so, who knows, may be worth?
The latter image, I used dongles like that. They broke within months and I had tried multiple brands, I soured on them a few brands deep.
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I did for a long time settle for adjusting the phone in the pocket, even putting things in there to change the position of the phone, but no, it never helped much. I’ll look in to getting it or something like it, thanks so much!
It was sad, yes, but I found that the dongle I already used for my laptop worked a charm with my phone. Sometimes plug in a keyboard and SD cards. Somehow handles it. I only really used an SD card for cameras and portable recording devices.
I think my needs in audio are mostly driven by my career. If I was not a music-person I would not need wired earphones. The driving factor of my having them is that I could pull them out of my phone and work on my laptop very quickly. BT headphones just had too much latency and not the best soundstage or frequency response…
I live in a low humidity climate, there is no pain quite as obnoxious as wired headphones static shocking you right across your brain.
Idk what exactly causes this, but I definitely have headphones that never do that. I reckon it’s only on my pricier pairs, so maybe it’s a cable insulation thing?
It depends on the proximity of metal to skin mostly. If you use giant cans with huge ear pads, you’re fine. If you use in-ear reference headphones, the metal mesh over the speaker is close enough to the earhole to jump the gap. It also depends if the headphones are plugged into a device on your person versus say, a desktop DAC. And if you use a chair with wheels that roll across plastic, etc. etc. A lot of variables. I still enjoy using wired for audio quality, I just have to make sure I don’t plan on moving and/or discharging my bodily static periodically on a grounded surface.
ESD is such an hilarious annoying thing, I once touched a cell phone and the entire display oozed to black starting from the point I touched and then oozed back to picture. Another time, I ESD’d a wall thermostat so hard that it reset back to factory defaults. I may actually be a Van De Graaff generator.
Edit: Just remembered a third, touched a light switch screw one day and static snapped me with enough juice that 200 nearby LED lights blinked on for a split second, and then back off.
Would wearing one of those grounded ESD leashes prevent this? It’s kinda silly, but if it works I’ll absolutely put one of those lil fuckers at my desk.
Funny you mention, I just recently got some ESD shoe harnesses to try out and see if they’ll drain it enough to reduce the shock. May have to go full ESD lab with grounded work pads and everything at some point hahaha.
Why the fuck use wireless phones? Just use a classic wall phone you fucking dummies! Why use SSDs? Just use good ole floppies!
Fuck sakes man, pull your head out of your ass. It’s called modernity and it’s okay
Bluetooth headphones are not modernity, they should of course be an option, but increasingly they are the only game in town. Wired is still king for loads of things, not the least of which is reliability.
You wanna know how many times my wired Sennheiser’s have been unable to put music in my ear holes? Never. They always work. Care to guess how many wireless headphones have been able to provide sound every time I’ve wanted it without delay or failure? None. I’ve owned more than 2 dozen wireless this, that, and the other, headphones & earbuds, and none of them have been even a shadow of the reliability offered by my old wired headphones. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the wired experience usually sounds better (Still don’t think you can get any comfortable phat 600ohm monster cans that don’t have a wire) and has no issues with making sound when you’re in a space that is saturating the 2.4Ghz band (my Costco is usually so full of idiots on Bluetooth that you can’t get a reliable experience for anything from any wireless audio device.)
You seem to think it’s “backwards rhetoric” to want a feature that will never be offered in a wireless setup, and that’s just fucked man. There are a wealth of reasons why wireless does not fully replace wired. It’s why anything that doesn’t have to move generally gets a fixed connection, it’s just more reliable and often more efficient. That’s not backwards, it’s just a priority that you don’t value above others. If landlines or floppy disks offered any advantages over anything else they’d still be around today (and arguably they are in some limited niches,) but the replacements for those technologies have had no downsides against their replacements while wireless tech still has some significant downsides (again, maybe you don’t weight the pros and cons the same, so this may not apply to you) against the technology they are meant to replace, and will likely never see 100% capture of their role as a result.
TL;DR: Stop trying to frame this as some sort of crusade against the future, there are legit cases where wired is just better than wireless.
I hope you enjoyed typing all that out because I’m not reading it
I like wired headphones it has nothing to do with modernity but the functionality I prefer. I dislike dealing with battery life. Same reason I have a wired keyboard. Also I’ve been in power outages that lasted long enough I wished I had a wall phone to do things like let my family know I hadn’t frozen to death or to call into work to update them so I was less likely to be fired. Me wanting a company to sell wired devices doesn’t affect your ability to buy wireless devices this isn’t a zero sum game, no need to be hostile.
Fair enough. Im just tired of all the backwards rhetoric on Lemmy, wasn’t fair to direct at you. I swear this place is stuck in a time warp sometime in the 90s or early 2000s. It’s frustrating.
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But also see:
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You just need replaceable wires that are bound to get replaced more often and more expensive instead
I wouldn’t trade my wireless stuff for wired ones at this point. Wireless earbuds have gotten so good that dealing with a wire would be a downgrade in most cases. When I work with mixing I always use my monitors with a wire, for obvious reasons.
Also as an aside; any company that claims to do anything “green” is profiteering off of greenwashing. Of course making stuff environmentally friendly would become trendy in the cringe corpo world. I think the most egregious example is Apple’s autumn 2023 iPhone event. Just thinking back on it is making me cringe.
The “greenest” product is the one that is never made to begin with.
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Please, just give us back the headphone jacks!
Or let us amputate the legs of techbros (they’re obsolete in the world of cars and electric wheelchairs).
My 3.5mm AUX says hello
> only support AAC and SBC codecs
> available for 149
Eh.
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Hard disagree that earbuds negate codec importance. I love open-back over-ears, but one of my best pairs of headphones are Moondrop IEMs, and I can hear differences in audio quality more noticeably on them than a lot of speakers. I very often plug them into a Bluetooth receiver for semi-wireless convenience, and I can absolutely hear the difference between LDAC and SBC.
However, yeah definitely agreed that $150 is fair for what’s being offered here. Limited codec support is common (if unfortunate) enough in similarly priced gear without the other benefits these bring, so I’d say it’s fair enough unless the drivers themselves are bad.
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In-ear phones have the potential of having the highest fidelity of all headphone types. So, no, being a “codec snob” is completely justified. Though I personally won’t be using BT phones before we get lossless connection as a standard. Wired are cheaper, last longer and have less environmental impact during production and after EOL.
In-ear phones have the potential of having the highest fidelity of all headphone types.
How so? Isn’t converting from digital to analog better than from digital to digital to analog?
Anti Commercial AI thingy
Nothing to do with ADA conversions (and digital-to-digital, eg SRC or bitdepth conversion, is completely transparent if done even remotely adequately). Small drivers close to eardrum with good seal just seem to be easier to manage when it comes to frequency response and distortion. Most open circumaural headphones, for example, seem to have deficiencies in lower end no matter the price.
Small drivers close to eardrum with good seal just seem to be easier to manage when it comes to frequency response and distortion.
Are you saying the length of the cable from my phone to my ears has an impact on audio quality?
Also, is there no loss when converting from the digital audio format to whatever bluetooth uses?
Most open circumaural headphones, for example, seem to have deficiencies in lower end no matter the price.
This seems unrelated to jack vs bluetooth.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
Are you saying the length of the cable from my phone to my ears has an impact on audio quality?
Why of course that is why OP only buys the finest MONSTER Vibranium-Plated Unobtanium-Engraved Analog Audiophile Cables.
No, they’re saying accurately reproducing sounds for people to listen to has much more to do with the vibrating membrane to eardrum interaction than anything that happens between the source material and the vibrating membrane.
Theoretically, yes. Practically, bluetooth has been way funkier than cable ever has for me. It drops, loses packets, and sometimes tries to catch up on whatever shit it was doing to suddenly have the audio sound like it’s fast forwarding. My ears aren’t the best, but that’s the kind of shit I do hear. Membranes can’t protect you from that.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
It’s not just about quality (AAC is perfectly fine quality-wise), it’s IMHO more about the extreme latency, and the fact that they have to to drop down to terrible-sounding HSP/HSP when using the microphone, since A2DP is monodirectional. Sucks that they don’t support LE Audio.
Turning your nose up at SBC isn’t being a codec snob; it’s having functioning ears.
And if you’re on Android, AAC is not well implemented compared to on iOS / MacOS. Maybe this has changed in the past couple years but it was immediately noticeable to me when I upgraded from the WH-1000XM3s to the XM4s, I could immediately tell that the audio was worse if they weren’t using LDAC. And these don’t have LDAC.
Unlike with competent compression codecs (mp3 vs AAC vs FLAC), where most people genuinely cannot tell the difference between a well-compressed song vs a lossless one, many people can immediately tell the difference between AptX and AAC or SBC on Android.
There are plenty of true wireless headphones out there that support LDAC or AptX for less than $100. It’s not surprising to me that people in their target audience would think $150 for something that sounds terrible to them isn’t reasonable.
asfasf
You don’t think the Bluetooth codec makes a difference when you’re using Bluetooth headphones? When else would it make a difference?
I feel like you’re just confusing the codec used for compressing audio for storage and wireless transmission with the codec used for transmission via Bluetooth. That or you’ve just never experienced a setting where a better codec was being used.
SBC can sound okay, but see here for a breakdown of why it almost never actually does. Basically, it’s capped at only using a fraction of the available bandwidth, even though it could use more if not for arbitrarily imposed limitations.
Running sbc at higher bitrates than default sound subjectively better than most existing codecs. I use 552 kbit/s regulary and it sound great. Unfortunately the support for higher sbc bitrates is terrible.
I’ve not been able to listen to high bitrate SBC myself, but that tracks with my understanding, too. I read this article - https://habr.com/en/articles/456182/ - recently, when trying to confirm my understanding of why there’s such a huge difference in sound quality from codec to codec.
What setup do you have where you’re able to listen to 552 kbps SBC?
My most expensive earbuds were $75.
At $150, I’d rather buy multiple “lesser” ear buds and not worry about battery lifespan.
I have 2 pairs of hang-on-ear type I use for the gym/exercise, that were $35 each. That’s less than 1/4 the price of these.
Then these aren’t for you and that’s fine. You don’t value what they offer, and you’re not obligated to buy them. Some of us do.
Sorry, what? They are obliged to buy them, if not today, they will be when their phone stops working and they have to buy a new one, because that won’t have a jack connector.
Except of course if they don’t use a smartphone.
Bluetooth headphones are unusable for videos and games if they only support high latency codecs.
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I had at least hoped for FastStream. (Essentially bidirectional SBC for good quality audio while using the microphone)
Hang on, is THAT why call quality is abysmal with practically every bluetooth device?
Yes. and why it’s wildly complicated on Windows machines where you have an audio output device for headphones and for headset, and once something starts using the mic the output device itself changes.
So joining team chat in a game will either make audio sound horrible or break it entirely if you had specified the output device instead of using default device.
How in the fuck is bluetooth even a competing standard? If it’s “good enough” than so is SD video and VHS tapes.
Bluetooth turns twenty-six this year, maybe we’ll be closer to good integration once it hits it’s thirties.
There’s a lot of things that make the Bluetooth experience better… it’s just almost all focused on mobile phones, maybe apple laptops if you stay in their walled gardens, but definitely not stock windows.
I say stock because if you do use windows and want to use Bluetooth you can improve things with a third party driver https://www.bluetoothgoodies.com/a2dp/ it’s still not great but at least you can use better codecs than default
I mean even Sony didn’t get it working on my XM4s, I don’t know why people expect it from $150 earbuds.
Starting to notice a trend with these “specialty” device companies, crap specs and high (relatively) prices.
The FP5, released last year has a SoC that performs worse than the Tensor. The TENSOR, a chip widely regarded as shitty, and can be had on a phone 200$ cheaper. :/
The high prices at least should be obvious, a product using fairly sourced components will always be more expensive.
fairly sourced components
Uses Qualcomm
Mmm, ok…
The workers literally get paid bonuses for each phone that gets made. The phone’s parts all get certified for sustainability. They need to find manufacturers willing to fulfill their requirements, for which they will obviously charge more.
I’m not saying that they’re for everyone or should be free from criticism. I personally decided against buying one due to the size, performance and camera. But if you’re complaining about a sustainable product costing more than a regular one, you’re missing the point and were never in the target audience in the first place.
Other’s make it cheaper because they don’t care about “fair”. How do you think cheap products become cheap? Think about it for a second.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
You can be “fair” and pricey, just put a better competitive SoC, rn it’s near budget tier for upper mid range money
And then they expect someone to use it for 10 years? LMAO, that thing is gonna be sluggish AF in another 1 or 2 tops, can’t imagine trying to use it in 10 lolol
You can be “fair” and pricey, just put a better competitive SoC, rn it’s near budget tier for upper mid range money
That’s the thing, fair SoC’s aren’t cheap because they aren’t available everywhere nor is a fair supply chain easy to setup. Do you think somebody just snapped their fingers or trusted the words written in a contract? "This supplier says they’re fair and ethical, so I’ll believe them 🤷 "
Who do you think has to verify suppliers claims? Do you think they are free? Do you think a manufacturer will simply throw out an unfair supplier to be ethical and fair if that meant loss of business or revenue?
Think about it from the extreme: are slaves cheaper than paid employees? Then continue the thoughts from there and the impacts they have on the cost and availability of products. Just walk through the logistics yourself and compare the cost of doing business ethically vs not. Maybe even write it down to get a better picture.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
deleted by creator
Buds can be used without an app, but they really should open source it if they really care about long term sustainability.
Imo its fine if they open source it when they decide to end support. The fact that app has a pristine privacy record is good enough
Is it? Closed source means it’s probably listening and recording and selling
You can just see which DNS calls it’s doing with any DNS overwriter.
Nah it’s encrypted
You don’t know what DNS is, do you?
Basically your device (for example your phone) needs to know the ip adress of any service it wants to connect to. As you may know these services usually use addresses like Lemmy.org or google.com or whatever.
To know what IP adres is behind these addresses, you device needs to ask a dns server, in a local network (like your own WiFi) this is usually your router, but you can set it to any arbitrary device you want. This way you can see what addresses are being asked for by your device.
So if the app want to send data to some server, it usually needs to resolve the adress first. And you can see that.
Data 'n stealing
I mean if you’re using something like Firebase on Android, the network calls get bundled with Google Play Services and you have no idea what that’s sending up
But if you have a DNS intercepter/redirect like RethinkDNS or DDG, it should show which queries are coming from which profile
I’m a fan of open source, but c’mon. There are reasons not yet to open source a product.
They should also have a wired option. But I guess that they removed the headphone jack from their latest phone for a reason.
I’d much prefer a 3.5mm jack
There are a plethora of cable earphones.
I don’t understand why people complain about wireless.
You’re not the target demographic.Exactly, wired headphones are everywhere.
My wireless earbuds were such a game changer I’ll never go back, I don’t know why so much hate.
The audio quality is still far inferior to hardline, though Bluetooth audio standards have gotten better over the past recent years.
Seriously, people act like there aren’t solutions to that “problem” that aren’t basically identically inconvenient to how it was before you needed an inline usb c to 3.5 mm adapter.
To preempt those that are gonna say “the adapter is inconvenient…,” no, the 3.5 mm jack that takes up space in my pocket that is unused 100% of the time is the inconvenience. You want a jack. You can have one. You get to have the inconvenience that goes along with it.
The adapter IS the inconvenience.
Disagree. The 3.5 mm jack that takes up space in my pocket that is unused 100% of the time is the inconvenience. You want a jack. You can have one. You get to have the inconvenience that goes along with it.
Just because you don’t find yourself needing a given port doesn’t mean no one should have one.
My USB c port broke from being cycled too many times with a stupid headphone dongle, and now I can’t charge it with a cable OR use my god damn headphones. I like my headphones, its obnoxious that I can’t just plug them into the device I want to listen to. I get it’s not relevant to you but it is relevant to many other people which is why so many people are still bitching about it years after almost every manufacturer has removed the port. Every single day its frustrating I don’t have one. Its frustrating when my friends want to play music in my car and they don’t have one.
I got my headphones for Christmas and I LOVE THEM, but I can’t even use them with my phone :(
Well I’ve got a solution for you!
Just insert this adapter into the 3.5mm jack and it will be blocked for you. It’ll no longer be wasted space because this adapter is a useful place to store several grains of rice for a snack.
Unfortunately you do lose a feature as a result of using this adapter, it will stop one of the speakers from working and degrade your audio quality.
But you shouldn’t complain about anything removing a feature, or degrading your audio quality. You’ve got a new feature of being able to store rice!
You can even buy special fairphone sustainable rice from us. With only a small 300% mark up but an incredible 80% of the sustainability of already available rice. It comes in green!
The fuck you talking about.
The complaint is “phones don’t have headphones jacks”
Presuming I was on your side,
Just insert this adapter into the 3.5mm jack and it will be blocked for you. It’ll no longer be wasted space because this adapter is a useful place to store several grains of rice for a snack.
Homie, you got rice storage with the old jacks. An adapter doesn’t introduce this problem.
Unfortunately you do lose a feature as a result of using this adapter, it will stop one of the speakers from working and degrade your audio quality.
Homie, this is how headphones work. You plug them in and the speakers stop working. If your audio quality is dropping something is wrong.
But you shouldn’t complain about anything removing a feature, or degrading your audio quality. You’ve got a new feature of being able to store rice!
Homie, again the data jack on USB C is more than fast enough to push FLAC through. If you’re losing quality it’s not the architecture.
You can even buy special fairphone sustainable rice from us. With only a small 300% mark up but an incredible 80% of the sustainability of already available rice. It comes in green!
This is you projecting. While this is on an article about fair phone, I’m only here to inform you that your nonsense complaint about 3.5 mm jacks is silly. It is valid, sure, but fucking silly anyways.
I’m sorry, I started joking because you weren’t being serious either.
Wait, you were being serious?
How is having more features an inconvenience?
The adapter is still the inconvenience for me, just because the other option is a (tiny) inconvenience for you doesn’t change the fact that the adapter is an inconvenience for me.
I don’t want a jack, wireless is 100x
The “demographic” of human being who doesn’t want to wreck the planet if Fairphone’s target.
If Fairphone is not trying to be universal anymore you should see that as a problem. So should every fairphone customer.
I’ll buy a more sustainable phone than the fairphone when my phone loses support in 2027. I’ll encourage everyone to buy a more sustainable product today.
You’re being downvoted, but yours is a legitimate request.
Then buy the dozens and dozens of models that are wired. Yall are worse than vegans.
This stereotype of Vegans has always bothered me. I’ve never once in my life heard a vegan announce to a group that they were vegan unless it was relevant to the conversation.
I have heard many people complain about vegans completely unprompted, however.
Around 10-15 years ago when that meme/stereotype was popularized , that was kind of the case. The world has moved on since then, the perception of veganism has changed, and it’s not a big deal anymore. Its easier to be vegan now, too. restaurants/grocery stores have more offerings, big brands have vegan options, people aren’t usually rude to you anymore for being vegan or asking for vegan stuff.
I think all this contributes to vegans feeling less of the need to assert themselves like before. I feel like its because people nowadays “get” it and back then most non vegan people didn’t get it.
And then they have no port to plug into on their phone.
Then get a usb dongle Jesus fucking christ
This!
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
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 a jack you can listen and charge you phone at the same time
With wireless headphones you can also charge your phone and listen at the same time
But any reason to prefer wireless is sort of moot because having a 3.5mm jack doesn’t preclude a wireless headphone feature.
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…
That said, without my device and quality headphones/iem I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.
With wireless headphones you can also charge your phone and listen at the same time
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.
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.
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.
How can you say that! It harms the shareholders of wireless earphones manufacturers!
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.
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.
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.
I’d give up the space of a battery for a jack, yes
With removable batteries, you can swap in a fresh pair. Not ideal, but a possibility now.
Every time it comes up I must lament the switch to screens too tall to watch content, the decision to remove wired 3.5mm jacks in order to drive sales of wireless headphones, the switch to increasingly fewer physical buttons. No more IR blaster.
I think you’re just finding reasons to nitpick. I agree with the jack but the fuck you need and IR blaster for?
IR blasters were great!
“Shit, where’s the remote? Oh well, I’ll just use my phone.”
If you lose a remote you also lose a phone easily
It is much easier to lose the remote since you only use it when using the TV (or other devices that have remotes). Where as you are much much more likely to be doing stuff on your phone actively. Also you can use various methods for locating your phone. Most remotes on the other hand don’t come with the same features for finding them. I am only personally aware of Roku’s remotes having the option to press a physical button on the main box, or via the Roku phone app (which can also be used as a remote).
I loved having the IR blaster on my Galaxy S6, and thought it was lame that it wasn’t around when I upgraded to my S8+. Though I will say that the pre-installed third-party app got on the enshittification train at some point. As I started getting random ads on my lock screen and found that this app cause. So that would be one thing that kind of made losing the IR blaster suck less. Still it sucks to lose features that were able to exist on my smaller phones now that I started getting the + and Ultra size models. Most certainly could fit the aux port at minimum.
Good thing there’s find my phone
cause it’s cool and I like it, which should be reason enough. more practically it works for cases when you lose your remote, maybe cases where you want to change the channel on some TV in a pub somewhere, shit like that. it’s fun.
What do you even need the IR blaster for?
Restaurant TVs.
I use mine all the time. Lobby’s, waiting rooms, restaurants, bars… it’s really nice to have it available. Especially when it’s just me, waiting in the doctor’s office, and I don’t wanna hear or watch whatever is on. I can just mute it and enjoy the silence, or change the channel. It’s not like I’m bothering anyone else anyway, I just don’t wanna listen to a Fox News opinion piece at a loud volume, if ain’t nobody else is watching either
Instead of messing with other people’s things why wouldn’t you just put in ear buds?
the lobby tvs are so annoying. if i’m alone for a while, i turn one off for a quiet section of the room
Or I could probably ask someone who works there to mute it for me, and it would be a non-issue (especially if it’s just me in the waiting area)
But I’ll just skip the middle man and mute it myself. And then unmute it when I leave or someone else walks in. It quite literally harms nobody and nobody has ever cared. If they did, I’m sure they would tell me and I would remember to bring earbuds/earplugs next time.
I think it’s more convenient for everyone, both me and the employee. I don’t have to bother them with something trivial, I’m not bothering anyone else. Quite literally a non-issue if you’re not being a malicious little asshat
bro you are equating muting a TV put there specifically to either advertise to you, or entertain you, to opening someone’s dinnerware cupboards. That’s just silly.
It takes the staff 3 seconds to undo what you did and no one gives a shit.
You’ve never lost your remote???
Nope.
Is their app open source?
Their website has a page that says they “embrace open source”
I couldn’t find the source code specifically for their app. Maybe this?
https://github.com/fairphone/android_device_fairphone_FP5
Honestly have no clue what I’m looking at there. There seems to be no iOS equivalent, so who knows.
Otherwise, their app permissions seem pretty reasonable:
• discover and pair nearby Bluetooth devices
• Access Bluetooth settings
• Pair with Bluetooth devices
• connect to paired Bluetooth devicesBut yeah, if no open source, that can definitely be a deal-breaker for the market they seem to be targeting.
This seems like part of their android os for FP5, TWRP is a common open source android recovery image: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWRP_(software)
Probably a attempt to open source the component they can, in the release note, they list the components that are not working.
FairPhone’s is not really the open source crowd though?
They proclaim to value open source and it seems they’ve tried to do some stuff in the past. I think software freedom is a natural conclusion of hardware repairability but it seems their priority is instead on being green and workers up the chain getting a fair pay.
Nice, how make one with the earbuds attached to each other with a wire and I’ll buy it for sure!
Why would you want that? I can’t imagine to ever going back to non wireless buds
Because if you do any kind of outside activity including uh work? Once it falls out - it’s gone forever. That’s a pricey accident.
I know we are all made different but Earbuds do not stay in my ear for shit. That’s why I just use headband headphones. >!Shout-out to Shockz. Dam near impossible to lose running.!<
I really wish earbuds would stay in for me. But anything other than sitting down and listening, and they start slipping. I’ve tried so many different shapes/sized ones, but it’s the same problem. At least if my wireless slip, it’s still hooked around my ear
And I literally just started looking at some Shockz headphones the other day! Will probably try them out, I just hope it doesn’t make my head feel uncomfortable or cause headaches/vertigo. I doubt it, but they’re a little pricier than my wired ones, and it would suck if I ended up not liking them after a while
Beware they are bone conduction headphones so they are not audiophile quality. I think they sound fine but my wife says I’m half deaf anyways.
I use them for Audiobooks and they are fantastic for situational awareness. I can hear everything all around me even while doing other tasks.
I really appreciate the heads up! But I actually pretty much want them for the “situational awareness”. I feel like I understand the expectations for audio quality. I’m not very much an audiophile, especially for what I’m trying to get out of them.
I work in a pretty quiet environment that only gets really noisy if there’s a situation that needs to be handled. So I wanna be able to hear the alarms and would be pausing my podcast/whatever if I need to respond. And I also like the way it seems to fit and stay in place. It seems like a great fit for what I’m after, I just hope I’m not unlucky enough to be too sensitive to the vibrations. I kinda doubt it would be an issue, but that’s my (small) main concern… would I stop using them 6 months later because I can’t get used to it
Should I get the “pro” version for better quality, or stay away because it could be too much bass/vibration (even at lower volume)
But I’ve seen a few people at work with them, and they love them… and a few others have tried, but can’t deal with the vibrations
So I’ve been torn. I’m probably gonna try them cause they check almost every box for what I’m looking for. But should I get the pro version? Would it be too much? Idk, and I could maybe try them from a co-worker, but I feel like I would have to spend time with them before knowing what I like. Just kinda wanna buy the right kind, if I’ma throw the money at it
I guess the experience varies wildly based on ear shape but I never lost a bud. I think there are better ways to address this than to add a whole ass cable though. That’s not very creative.
What are the better ways to address this?
Ones that don’t involve a cable lol
Wired still has some advantages. Mainly sound quality.
I like the infinite battery life wired headphones have.
Don’t forget the little string so you can easily pop em out and let em dangle without losing them.
The thing about wired earbuds and headphones is that they’re already pretty sustainable. A good pair can last you decades, while wireless buds are usually throwaway products. So I think it’s pretty cool that they’re doing something about that for those that want wireless earbuds.
I think you misunderstood, I want wireless headphones that have the two earbuds connected via a wire so you know, one doesn’t just pop out if your ear and drop on the street.
Ah, indeed I did.
I think JBL and some other brands do carry such earbuds, but maybe it might not be thz kind of wire you’d fancy. There are also cheaper options that have a wire linking the two ear buds, but as I said those are usually cheap and might not be up to your standards.
They are called “Wireless” headphones when there is a wire connecting them. “True Wireless” means two separate earbuds.
Then “true wireless” is a bad experience, at least from my eyes.
Ears?
Bang and Olufsen used to make a set like that, they were pretty snazzy.
I have a set of those from Jabra
Ugh? I used to burn through wired earbuds at a pace of maybe one pair per month. You basically have to sit and not move if you don’t want to damage the wire IME
Some of the better ones have removable cables. You’ll usually just yank them out or worst case if the cable is damaged you can easily replace it.
How much are you paying for your headphones? Nicer ones that don’t break as easily are probably a cost effective option for you.
And still like only $20 for ones with the ability to replace a broken wire
All of these honestly ought to just come with a small hole and bring your own ‘lanyard’/‘string’. I can’t imagine it would require much in terms of design to put a hole in a corner.
You may like Shokz. Their headsets are wireless and bone-conducting. The drivers get pressed to your temples with a flexible wire connecting them and you hear the sound conducting through your head instead of your ear canal. The only downside I’ve experienced with them is that they can only drown out so much noise, so if you’re planning on using them in a noisy environment, probably go with another choice.
A friend of mine has a set of them at work and they work well in our noisy environment - machine shop.
The rule for earbuds is that you can only have one in so the bone conduction are gaining popularity at work.
I wish they fit in my motorcycle helmet. My earbuds fall out all the time when I take my helmet off.
I can use them everywhere. Except my whole subway ride…
There have wireless headphones that you can use a USB-C wire with, but that’s not an earbud.
If only they shipped to the US…at least, I didn’t see that option.
First thing I looked at as well. Shame. I’ll buy them when my AirPods die if they offer shipping to the us.
here’s hoping the next Fairphone finally launches new in the US.
Really would love to finally use one.
They sell an official version with US antennas through Murena!
they sell the fairphone 4 not the 5. And while I’m not against e/os/, that’s kind of neat for me I think it’d be awesome if they sold the original model with android with all of Google Spyware lol
The bootloader is open so you could throw Fairphone’s Android on there no problem. I think they provide the files for that (didn’t check so don’t know for sure)
This is true. Hopefully they will soon sell the 5! I tossed lineageOS on mine, and have felt pleased with it.
Did you buy it from fairphone or are you saying you got the fairphone 4 with e/os/ from Mureno?
I bought the 4 from Mureno with e/os/ on it.
I’m curious what made you not like e/os/. I’m interested to try it if they do the fairphone 5
I didn’t have strong feelings about it, and had extensive experience with LineageOS. I just stuck with what I knew.
Fairbuds: replaceable batteries
Fairerbuds: open source app
Fairestbuds: open source firmware
Nvm replaceable batteries, I keep buying 2-3 pairs of ear buds a year because I keep forgetting them in my pants when I wash them, or I give them a pat down and don’t feel them inside of them.
My wife wanted me to buy her a pair of air pods.
I’m like, get a pair of headphones to last you more than a month, then we’ll talk.
I can’t tell you how many pairs of cheap earbuds we’ve gone through. Either lost or eaten (damn dog). Almost always just the right earbud. Never the left. I have so many lefts left.
So, you’re not all right?
Far from it, but that started long before the first lost earbud.
I’ve had three sets of earbuds where the right one has died of no apparent cause shortly after the warranty expired.
I’m starting to think it’s intentional.
My dog chewed on one of my Buds 2 Pro earpiece after owning them for two months cause I left the door open. Managed to open the case and everything lol
Cool. Their first gen Fair buds were kinda pointless. The headphones though, the Fair buds XL are excellent. I bought a pair recently and I love them.
