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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Android
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What about their typically disposable nature?
Say I’m a fan of buds, but now I need wireless buds. No one makes ones that are made to have the battery replaced. They’re intended to be thrown away after the batteries wear out. While wired ones work forever, maybe needing a replacement cable, or to patch an existing cable… maybe.
Not to mention, audio quality. I’ll skip the buds quality themselves, bc some people claim to not be able to hear the difference… there are no bt headsets that have a mic that even approaches the quality of the old included buds from iPhones. None.
You mean the disposable nature of wired headphones with thin-as-hell 26/28 gauge wires that break if you look at them wrong?
I've broken more wired headsets than I've owned Bluetooth. I still have my ten+ year old noise-canceling bletooth headphones. I haven't "disposed" them.
If things are disposed, it's generally on the person, not the device.
I have multiple 2017 and older phones that still work, and get used as podcast/music players, security cameras, etc. I have a 1998 laptop I use to run Linux for testing. The batteries are toast, but so what.
Again, disposability is primarily a consumer issue, not a product one.
And I call BS on the sound quality. Given the nature of the source, and especially environments we're in, noise is a huge factor. As for the microphone thing - the transport systems are far worse than what mics can do - "can you hear me" wouldn't be a meme otherwise. Until that's addressed it's really a non-argument.
I guess I can agree that disposability is more of an individual thing, personally, I like wired headphones (Though, I don't use them exclusively). And because of the very issue you mentioned, I normally buy headphones/earbuds that have replaceable cables. One hard-wired set got chewed by a dog, and I opened them up and replaced the cable with some soldering (Something that would be much harder on hardwired earbuds).
With regard to the phones, the laptops, etc... those have ways of using them with dead batteries, and often can have their batteries replaced.
This is the key difference with wireless earbuds (particularly earbuds much more so than wireless headphones in general). Wireless earbuds are extremely difficult to replace batteries on, if not literally impossible, and because of the very small capacity of the batteries, they tend to be charge cycled more and will chemically age faster.
My first Airpods lasted me a good 2 years of pretty heavy use, but towards the end the battery life was inconsistent. One bud was virtually useless, it died so fast, and I took the pair to apple to see what they might be able to do. They did me the favor of charging me the replacement cost of a single bud, but then replaced both buds and case (~$60). Not horrible, but definitely not ideal.
Mics, the bluetooth transport used for mics (two-way-SBC vs other enhanced codecs for one-way audio like AAC/AptX) is the horrible limiting factor. The physical capsules are definitely adequate, but it doesn't matter if the audio can't be sent to the phone at quality. I think you might have been referring to the cellular transport, but that really depends on how you're making the call. VOIP Calls, VoLTE, etc are capable of very high quality audio, given a good source, which bt sbc mics are not. During covid we had people using the "best bluetooth mics" (Airpods pros) on their zoom calls and they sounded like CRAP. Plug in a cheap trusty pair of wired EarPods... crystal clear. Even the tiktok kids get that mic quality thing, thats why so many are using the mic from EarPods.
Anyway, no ill will. Kudos on the reusing of old tech... I often intend to, but I've had a habit of holding on to aging tech until its of virtually no use to anyone. So instead, lately, I've just been refurbishing things that I can and donating/giving them away.
Again, everything is disposable, nothing lasts indefinitely (and I keep everything much longer than most people. My cars last 10-20 years).
Just because your headphone battery fails before some other internal component, doesn't change this. I've had plenty of devices fail. Electronics are no different than batteries (which are electronic devices).
With wired headphones (all headphones actually) the cones age - I can't imagine what most cones look like after 10 years of exposure to atmospheric oxygen and heat/cooling cycles. I seriously doubt any of them reproduce sound anything like when new.