Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 496 posts

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#201

Post by fastball »

chmod775 wrote: post #25
fastball wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm incredibly absent-minded; I wake up in the morning, grab my iPhone and AirPods off my bedside table, and carry them around with me all day. Then, when I take off the clothes I've been wearing all day, I put them back on the charging stand. Rinse repeat. It's habit at this point, I haven't consciously had the thought "my AirPods are low on battery, I need to recharge them" in months.

> Especially not in something that's never supposed to be more than a few centimeters from the device it's receiving signals from anyways.

This sounds kinda like the opinion of someone who has never even tried wireless earphones. It is very nice being able to stand up from my desk / ride my motorbike / etc and keep listening to whatever I was listening to (or staying on the call I was on) without my phone being in reach.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#202

Post by google234123 »

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…

Try the airpod pros with an iPhone.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#203

Post by Hamuko »

imposterr wrote: post #167
fy20 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should note I have no issues with the WH-1000X (headphones, not earbuds) from Sony. Audio quality is great [0], battery needs to be charged maybe once a week, pairing works perfectly and they are pretty comfortable to wear all afternoon in the office. [0] Unless you try to make a call using the microphone, when it switches to a low quality codec, but are there any Bluetooth headsets that don't have this issue?

>are there any Bluetooth headsets that don't have this issue? Yes. The recently released Bose QC45 headphones do not have this issue. I don’t know what they did to stop it, but it’s not present.

Too bad the reviews I've read about the QC45 have not been too flattering.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#204

Post by derefr »

havkd wrote: post #195
derefr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes they will randomly disconnect during use. FYI, that's interference. Wi-fi "randomly" disconnects for a few seconds due to interference just as often, but you don't notice, because 1. the OS hides short disconnects, and 2. most protocols you use are TCP-based, and so use retries. (If you were doing something involving UDP streaming, you'd notice.) Bluetooth audio, on the other hand, is a realtime protocol,…

> Wi-fi "randomly" disconnects for a few seconds due to interference just as often, but you don't notice That’s false. If it happens to you, get better wireless equipment.

I say "disconnect" but I don't mean that the 802.11 PHY driver of the computer or the base station notices that there's a disconnection. Just that there's a time-correlated burst of packet loss on some/all channels.

This might not ever happen to you if you live in a bunker, or on a farmstead at least 500 feet from any neighbours. (Though I wouldn't completely discount the possibility; there's always solar storms.)

But if you live in a city, and like to sit near large picture windows (where the light from the window cuts across the straight-line path between your wireless devices and their base station), then every once in a while you're going to get what's basically a mini-EMP blast blowing through your window glass, on one random unlicensed-spectrum-interfering frequency on another: every time someone in the building across from yours vacuums with a 1950s vacuum cleaner with an ungrounded plug, or uses their shitty $50 freestanding microwave with underspecced side shielding; or operates their unlicensed AliExpress garage-door opener, or... etc.

If we could hear 2.4/5GHz, every day in a city would sound like Diwali: sudden short explosions, from every direction, at any odd hour of the day.

Remember, "unlicensed" spectrum means the FCC isn't policing those bands like they do with licensed allocations; so all the 2.4/5GHz "polluters" — the device buyers, and the manufacturers — never get told to stop.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#205

Post by shmerl »

Gigachad wrote: post #142
shmerl wrote: post #89

> Since Apple launched the Bluetooth-enabled headphones in 2016, they’ve become an inescapable feature of daily life Really? I thought bluetooth headphones were a thing way before Apple woke up about it. This "Apple made wireless headphones the feature of daily life" is just bizarre to me. May be for people who are stuck with Apple, anything that happens outside it doesn't exist.

It’s hard to understate how successful apple was with wireless headphones. I opened this thread while standing on the street, and as I look around, _all_ of the headphones I saw were AirPods. The AirPods are by far the most successful headphones ever.

Depends on where you are. May be in your area Apple usage is disproportionally dominating, so you simply don't see anything else.

I don't buy this whole "Apple made it common" thing in general. They just like to present as novelty what existed long before they decided they think their users should start using it. And their users start thinking it's common when Apple decides for them.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#206

Post by trasz »

japanuspus wrote: post #155
theshrike79 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* will at one point start mysteriously crackling unless you hold the wire in that one weird angle from that one spot

This has actually changed over the last 10 years: today all but the cheapest on/over ear headphones will come with replaceable cables (2.5mm jack in headphone end). Background: I have a collection of even older "goodish" headphones which I have kept alive with solder over the years. My teenage son recently started buying similar headphones, and they all have replaceable cables. This was me as well until my Yes, this…

Definitely not all - DT770 still don’t. And their cables are terrible.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#208

Post by havkd »

derefr wrote: post #204
havkd wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wi-fi "randomly" disconnects for a few seconds due to interference just as often, but you don't notice That’s false. If it happens to you, get better wireless equipment.

I say "disconnect" but I don't mean that the 802.11 PHY driver of the computer or the base station notices that there's a disconnection. Just that there's a time-correlated burst of packet loss on some/all channels. This might not ever happen to you if you live in a bunker, or on a farmstead at least 500 feet from any neighbours. (Though I wouldn't completely discount the possibility; there's always solar storms.) Bu…

A burst of packet loss that doesn’t translate into at least a disconnection of current TCP streams is, by definition, not a disconnection.

Re: Corded headphones are making an unexpected return

#210

Post by theshadowknows »

hmrr wrote: post #179
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…

Been using 2nd gen AirPods since they came out. Never had any connection reliability issues at all. They switch between my phone and iPad all the time as well. No glitches at all here other than one time I was walking past a large diesel generator. As for gestures, I don’t use them. I usually use Siri, my watch or phone as a control surface. As for snug that depends on the person at the end of the day. I don’t have p…

The only issue I have is that sometimes either my AirPods pro or AirPods max will get confused and try to connect to the wrong device. But it’s not such a huge inconvenience that Id go back to wired.
Post reply on HN