It's been 7 months using these as many days as not. I listen to everything between spoken word podcasts, folk, rock, hip-hop, and electronic music. I'm an omnivore cyclist (commuting + road + MTB), I also do a lot of remote IT/software work and talking on the phone.
For the reasons listed below, I think this is the best "cyborg"-style audio interface to the brain available. There are limitations and it's not "one headset to rule them all", but overall I'm quite happy and if you took mine today I'd buy another tomorrow.
Good things:
- For most use cases (and any casual listening), audio quality is just fine. Frequency perception across the spectrum will never be as consistent as headphones designed foremost for AQ, but you'll only be disappointed if you A/B them with a set of monitors or audiophile headphones.
- The headset doesn't block your hearing. If you play music much louder than ambient sounds, then ambient sounds still get hard to hear, i.e. your situational awareness still suffers proportional to listening volume, but less so than for normal headphones. I still usually hear cars approaching from behind while cycling.
- It feels more "natural" to talk on the phone with this than with obstructing headphones or earbuds, because you hear the sound of your own voice normally.
- This headset is 100% compatible with glasses and helmet straps, and it's easiest if you put on the headset after everything else. (You may have issues if the temple arms of your glasses are especially thick, but I don't.)
- The headset is plenty comfortable to wear for a few hours; I wear it in anticipation of a phone call. (Like anything worn on the head, you'll eventually you'll want to take it off.)
- The rubber-coated "spring" connecting the two halves is pretty durable as advertised. It got bent a little out of shape from traveling in a backpack, and I bent it back. The included case is soft-sided and probably doesn't make much difference.
- I've owned several "glitchy" bluetooth devices and this isn't one of them. Turn it on and your paired computer/tablet/phone connects right away.
Some awesome, unexpected use cases:
- Voice directions for GPS navigation while cycling -- much better and safer than looking down at a navigation display.
- Videoconferencing via Google Hangouts and the like -- I've given 2-hour remote presentations wearing them, and they are barely noticable on camera.
- Sometimes I'll use it while driving instead of the car audio system, and when I get where I'm going, I step out and walk away with no interruption in the audio or having to fidget with anything.
Issues:
- The microphone doesn't handle background or wind noise well. It's OK for phone conversations while driving, but people can't hear me while I'm washing dishes. Wind from forward motion greater than about 5-8 MPH also drowns out the microphone, so, walking on the phone is fine but cycling on the phone doesn't work.
- Forward motion greater than ~15-18 MPH catches enough wind noise to drown out the headphones, even at high listening volumes. As a cyclist, this is fine for commuting and mountain biking, but on fast road stretches I hear mostly wind.
- At high volumes the drivers vibrate your face a lot at certain bass frequencies. I notice this most when listening to a podcast with a lot of bass in the recording. The equalizer has two settings, 'less bass' and 'more bass', and sometimes switching to 'less bass' mitigates the vibration.
- When there is a constantly high ambient noise floor (e.g. on an aircraft), it's hard to hear whatever you're listening to, even at high volumes. You can put in earplugs(!) to shut this out, and your audio will sound clearer yet bassier. Noise isolating headphones are really better for flying.
- Sometimes changing the equalizer setting seems to have no effect, which could be a firmware bug or just my unsophisticated ears.
- There is some external audio leakage which gets worse at moderate-to-high volumes. It's not bad enough to annoy people in an office if you're listening at volumes that allow you to hear someone trying to get your attention.
- Multipoint pairing doesn't work. It will remember multiple paired devices but only ever connect to one at a time. If you want to connect your computer you need to disconnect your phone first.
- You get about 10 minutes of warning before the battery dies. This isn't a big deal because the battery life is pretty long and quick to charge, thankfully with the same micro-USB cable that everything else uses.
You may ask "why four stars with all these issues?" They're all manageable/minor annoyances or corner cases. I also feel that we should support unproven, promising new technolgies that may improve everyone's lives, especially when developed by non-megacorps. With that perspective, perhaps I'm more likely to forgive little issues. Looking forward to see how much better these get in a few years.
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