Corded headphones are making an unexpected return • Hacker News Board

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#21

Post by coldtea » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #5

Yes, they aren't a novelty anymore, they don't screen from other people effectively, cheap clones are almost identical, too many people use them and the cool factor dropped, yadda yadda yadda. ...or maybe most users after some years realized the true costs of having non replaceable batteries. Making them replaceable on the AirPods would be very easy; and a nice move that would also bring them some more customers incl…

I don't think the intended customers care at all about replaceable batteries as an issue against purchase. And even as an expense it's insignificant anyway (given the lifetime until replacement)...

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#22

Post by dghlsakjg » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:09 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #7

squarefoot wrote: post #5

Yes, they aren't a novelty anymore, they don't screen from other people effectively, cheap clones are almost identical, too many people use them and the cool factor dropped, yadda yadda yadda. ...or maybe most users after some years realized the true costs of having non replaceable batteries. Making them replaceable on the AirPods would be very easy; and a nice move that would also bring them some more customers incl…

How would it be very easy to make the battery user replaceable? I don't even know where they stuck the battery.

I’ve resoldered the batteries on my generic wireless earbuds that were very much meant not to be serviceable. It really wouldn’t be hard to make them serviceable, even if they weren’t user replaceable. There’s one in each bud, and another in the case.

A battery only needs two electrical contacts on a component that is already self contained. Its a very simple device. The lithium ion ones in this size range are a few bucks each on the wholesale market. There are even standardized button cell sizes. It is very much a design choice.

The other side of it is that lithium ion battery tech is at the point where the battery lifespans is starting to exceed the device lifespan. Certainly true for the cheap side of the earbud market

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#23

Post by coldtea » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:10 AM UTC

fbelzile wrote: post #6

> For disorganized types, corded headphones are easier to keep track of and needn’t be charged. This is why I've never bought wireless headphones. You don't need to be disorganized to appreciate the convenience of not having to charge yet another device you want to use on the fly. Why would I pay more for something that takes more mental bandwidth to use?

Because of the obvious less mental bandwidth of not having to deal with wires, tangling, the extra freedom of movement, and so on...

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#24

Post by coldtea » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #17

The 1/8th inch RCA stereo jack is the best interface ever created. The fact that it's essentially unchanged from when this 44 year old used it in middle school is pretty good proof.

The US power plug and socket is also unchanged, and yet it's a crap design.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#25

Post by chmod775 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #10

fbelzile wrote: post #6

> For disorganized types, corded headphones are easier to keep track of and needn’t be charged. This is why I've never bought wireless headphones. You don't need to be disorganized to appreciate the convenience of not having to charge yet another device you want to use on the fly. Why would I pay more for something that takes more mental bandwidth to use?

AirPods kinda solved this problem with the wireless charging case. I almost never use them long enough to drain the battery in the headphones before they get put back in the case. At night I put the case on my wireless charging thingy and I don't really ever "think" about charging my AirPods. My wireless headphones I do occasionally have to think about charging, but they are USB-C and mostly I'm using them on my comp…

> At night I put the case on my wireless charging thingy and I don't really ever "think" about charging my AirPods.

You just did. Us absent-minded people are likely to forget even putting those things back into their case, forget the case at home or some other place (since we don't need it to listen), or forget to charge it. My stuff is likely to be in the last place I stopped using it. In this case that's hopefully my jacket, but it certainly won't be some charging station.

My wired earphones I can wear under my shirt with only a small chance of losing them. I still lose those occasionally, but mostly I break them every six months. A new pair is ten bucks, so whatever.

I already have trouble keeping my phone charged. I don't need more stuff with batteries. Especially not in something that's never supposed to be more than a few centimeters from the device it's receiving signals from anyways.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#26

Post by squarefoot » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #7

squarefoot wrote: post #5

Yes, they aren't a novelty anymore, they don't screen from other people effectively, cheap clones are almost identical, too many people use them and the cool factor dropped, yadda yadda yadda. ...or maybe most users after some years realized the true costs of having non replaceable batteries. Making them replaceable on the AirPods would be very easy; and a nice move that would also bring them some more customers incl…

How would it be very easy to make the battery user replaceable? I don't even know where they stuck the battery.

The battery is contained in the stick coming down from the AirPod body. They could make them threaded with concentric tracks at the top making contact with springs, so the user could simply unscrew them and swap with fresh ones, so that the parts cost of replacing the battery would be the battery itself plus a piece of plastic, some wire and a small almost empty pcb, surely not the entire device.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#27

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

adzm wrote: post #12

Also, latency. I can't get over it.

I have Bluetooth headphones (WH-1000XM4) that I use on a PC. They work great for music, but for video content the latency is very perceptual. It is sub-second, but you can tell actor's mouths aren't in sync.

Unfortunately there isn't a lot of solutions on PC, since the platform has no control of browser based video playback and even if it did, finding the exact audio offset would be impractical.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#28

Post by secureleaf » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

I might be in the minority here, but wired headphones have always been a disaster for me.

I only buy wireless ones now, even though they're fraught with their own issues. It seems like there's always a tradeoff to be made, specifically regarding quality.

My biggest complaint has been the damage that I've always seem to have done to the headphone jacks of devices that I use. I'm not harsh on my devices, but I do tend to put my phone in my pocket and walk around with headphones on. And if it's not the headphone jack that gets destroyed, it's the cable; I went through ~5 different cables/earbuds when I was using the Shure SE215s.

Bluetooth headphones aren't great either. I have not lost a pair of headphones in years, but I've gone no more than 12 months without purchasing a new pair. This gets expensive when I also want my headphones to have active noise cancelling and sound reasonably good (I don't care about audiophile cans, because I wear my headphones primarily when I'm active). And don't even get me started on a pair that has a good (not even great) mic... I'd love to be able to have a phone conversation when walking through midtown Manhattan.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#29

Post by derekp7 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

wintorez wrote: post #11

I try to avoid things with irreplaceable batteries as much as possible.

I used to feel that way, but then I've got a drawer full of old gear with replaceable batteries that I can't get the batteries for anymore. Would be much more useful if rechargeable lithium batteries were standardized. Also I probably wouldn't really want to use any of these devices even if I could get a battery for them as the technology has moved so much since I originally got them.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#30

Post by Ancapistani » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #3

I have never really gotten used to wireless buds, and still find myself reaching for wires half the time: - Wireless buds don’t connect 100% reliably; sometimes I get one and not the other, or neither. Sometimes they will randomly disconnect during use. - Sometimes the sound glitches out randomly, which is so irritating that I don’t care how good the sound supposedly is the rest of the time. - Gestures and voice are…

Do you have AirPods or AirPods Pro?

I was a fan of the originals, but bought the Pros shortly after they came out. I'm on my second pair now - the first pair came down with the dreaded "crackling" and Apple replaced them.

I find that they stay in my ears well enough that I regularly use them when driving my Jeep without doors, even when I'm not listening to music. They provide some level of reduction of the wind noise that I'm certain has been damaging my hearing in my left ear in particular.