Really happy to see replaceable batteries! It’s a wear item and guaranteed to brick your device after a number of years if they aren’t replaceable.
Replaceable batteries are coming to the EU in general, at least for portable devices, via the EU Batteries Regulation, which is in force already and requires all portable batteries to be easily removable and replaceable by the end user from 2027
EU has single handedly done more to improve
myselfmy life than my own government with this one law.Damn, how much do you pay your government?
Low income American here, upwards of 24% of everything I make.
And every penny of it used to fund fresh boots for your neck.
Well I do like FDAs, and roads though. But I’d rather have healthcare as well, and I’d like way less of it to go toward it cops and wars. Mainly I want a lot more of the taxes coming from the billionaires.
more taxes from billionaires
Okay so look up the name of the guy who was point man for the business plot.
Look up his son’s and grandson’s names.
And then, after doing that; explain how that’s ever gonna happen.
i hope this eu law makes it happen elsewhere, if anything for them to take better advantage of the economy of scale.
and if they dont ill be coveting some eu devices.
They probably calculate cost saved by economy of scale, vs profit generated from planned obsolescence in other markets.
Might be more profitable to run different SKUs.
The EU is a relatively large market, and it wouldn’t make economic sense to develop and produce EU-specific devices. I’m pretty sure you’ll also be seeing replaceable batteries.
I don’t believe the EU will make earbuds batteries serviceable. Phones and laptops, sure.
guaranteed to brick your device after a number of years
But what’s the number? Also, a battery not lasting all day is hardly bricking.
I think that’s an issue of semantics. If someone needs their device to last all day and it doesn’t anymore, then it is effectively bricked. Could one find a workaround to the issue? Oh probably, something as simple as lugging around a battery bank should do the trick, but ultimately users being able to just swap the battery in their device themselves isn’t a big ask. It gives a modicum of ownership back to the person who actually bought the device.
Which Bluetooth headphones last all day without topping up at all? I’m curious what a use case is that would require someone need them.
Nah I’m thinking of phones in this scenario. That said, both benefit from having user replaceable batteries.
iPhone batteries are covered under warranty if they drop below - I think - 80% of original capacity. Using that as a benchmark, something between that and 50% is going to be frustrating for the average user. Perhaps frustrating enough to replace.
“Brick” caught me off guard too. When thinking about a product that can’t be used while simultaneously charging has a battery that’s nearly shot, though, it struck me as a fair description.
Do you not know that batteries stop being able to charge eventually?
Yeah. Eventually…
Lol
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.
Not when they’re twice the price is decent Sonys
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.
Well, my point is that we wouldn’t need wireless headphones if Fairphone still had a headphone jack
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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The only reason the headphone jack was ever removed is to sell you wireless earbuds.
People will deny this but this is the only real reason for doing that. The other reason is copying apple, which isn’t really another reason as apple removed it for the first reason. Fairphone just went the extra mile to claim that headphones are wasteful, in essence they’re making an excuse to cover up their reason why and also trying to force others to do it as well.
or a adapter at greater than 20x cost
YUP! I’m sorry, Apple earned more money than Spotify purely based on their airpod market. I refuse to believe otherwise.
If they truly cared about repairability/maintainability they’d give me a headphone jack phone with a replaceable module in case it wears down.
I freaking hate dongles, I always have one when I don’t need one and can never find one when I don’t. They randomly don’t work or I don’t know if this AliExpress one I bought is actually stealing my data. Just give a built-in jack, please!
I velcro’d dongles to some wired pairs of headphones, but haven’t been using them.
AirPods have been great for stockholders and bad for our planet’s inhabitants. But I cannot deny the flexibility, seamlessness (even across devices), speed to don & doff, and convenience are powerful factors.
They also sell headphone to USB cable. I’m not saying the lack of a headphone jack is good but if their goal was really to sell wireless earbuds then selling a USB to headphone cable was a bad move, no?
Yes… they sell an adapter.
A master plan to make more money selling a cable than a port on an already bulky phone?
As Louis Rossmann also said, using a single port for both charging/moving data and listening music increases the wear on the port. They’re just made to wear down faster with the absence of the audio jack port.
Plus it’s impractical, as it occupies the type c port.
What’s the lifetime of those ports you think?
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…
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…
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.
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.
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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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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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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.
I’m the same, those dongles don’t last, and are annoying to use. I picked up one of these cables from aliexpress to use with my iems and it works a treat. There’s better quality cables out there, but for 10 bucks these are solid.
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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…
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 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.
But also see:
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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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Apple’s autumn 2023 iPhone event
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I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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You just need replaceable wires that are bound to get replaced more often and more expensive instead
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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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
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
Bluetooth headphones are unusable for videos and games if they only support high latency codecs.
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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.
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.
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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
(Downvotes incomming) People still use wired headphones? It’s a very small market these days and Lemmy users are simply bubbled power users
As a DJ and audiophile in general, yeah I’m not thrilled on headphones using batteries and Bluetooth. I’ll give up my hard-line when I’m dead.
Sure, some wireless for exercise or casual use is fine. Full deal breaker if I’m performing though.
You’re doing DJ performance from a phone?
Towards the end of my DJ’ing career, I was to the point of showing up to a venue (that had an existing sound system) on my motorcycle with my controller, headphones, microphone (that didn’t smell like beer breath) and laptop in a backpack. I’d just plug in and go. But even then the idea of DJ’ing from just a phone or tablet seemed weird to me. I understood the appeal of it but…
The sticking point for most people is stereo. When you throw on AC/DC, you expect to hear the guitar out of the just one speaker but when DJ’ing a large room that doesn’t work. Half the room hears the guitar and the other half just hears high hat. So you end up flipping the mono switch, ya know, just for that one song. Then eventually you’ve done three gigs in a row and realize that it’s been mono the whole time and no-one noticed, not even you.
Headphones jacks have two audio out channels. We typically think of them as left and right, but they aren’t, that’s just how most people use them. Once you get past the mono idea, you realize you have two distinct audio outputs on your phone or tablet. If the music software can do the mono summing instead of the mixer, then then you can hook the “left” output cable to mixer ch 1, and the “right” to ch 2, and play different songs out each. Make sure the same output of the mixer goes to both speakers and you’re in business. You just need dj’ing software that can play two different songs at the same time on your phone and interface with a controller, probably via bluetooth.
Now you can show up to a party with just your phone that you were already carrying anyway, plug in to their controller, and make a surprise appearance.
It still weirds me out, but modern phones have the horsepower to do this. They certainly don’t have the disk space for a terabyte library, so you aren’t going to work a six hour wedding with an iphone, but there are TB SD cards so certain Androids could certainly do this.
There’s probably also software that will do everything over bluetooth so a completely wireless phone could work.
I’ve been out of the game for over a decade. I can’t imagine how far the controllers and software have come and don’t want to find out because I’m sure my poor wallet can’t handle it.
Excellent points, appreciate the write up. Better said than I could myself.
I will also note that in my personal experience phone was more of a hail mary when I’d be doing like a wedding reception or private party and needed a tune for client that wasn’t already in my USBs. When the tip depends on it, yes, I absolutely DJ with the phone.
For a while, youtube was a life saver for new songs.
I agree modern phones have the horsepower to do a full on audio production; how does a 3.5mm jack help in this setup that a multi-bus USB-C DAC or mixer can’t do a better job than a driver that’s confined to 5mm of space?
A DAC is definitely the better option in my opinion, especially if your phone doesnt have great audio quality.
When the controllers first came out, they’d cheap out by making the computer process the audio. My first Bherringer controller would convert the mic input to digital and send it to the computer to mix on the sound card. If the computer was disconnected you couldnt use the mic or hook up a cd player.
Some people are just cheap and manufactures will make whatever people will buy. The phone already has audio, so the controller is just that: a bunch of buttons. You dont have speakers built into a keyboard or mouse. A controller is just an HID.
I’m not a DJ, but I can listen to high end audio from 3.5mm, even a phone, and you just can’t over Bluetooth. Its lossy janky and barely a standard.
There is also the latency if you are playing games with audio cues.
Oh. Oh god ive never even tried that. That sounds horrible.
Rhythm game enthusiast use wired headphones & kernel+pipewire settings to further reduce latency—as do musicians for recording on playback. Pro gamers use wired peripherals too for inputs & some even go analog for monitors for lower latency. Is it a stretch to say “wireless” is shorthand for “casual”? 🤔
AptX over Bluetooth is lossless and has been available since 2016. Android only though.
My experience of Bluetooth has always been settings that I can’t change, security issues, and devices that run different implementations on both ends. See ‘barely a standard’, even when the box for each reads the same standard number.
Which is why I’m so reluctant to call it a standard; it isnt standardized.
No, it isn’t. It just has higher bitrates, but still not enough for lossless.
If that’s true it seems like the name is fooling people
no one uses wired headphones until they suddenly really wish they had wired headphones
Exactly how I bought mine. Only pair I could find in my house were insufferably cheap and hurt to use. Realized I could get a very decent wired pair for like $20. Love those things now
The low-end Chinese IEMs from the likes of MOONDROP, TRUTHEAR, etc. in that $20 range are surprisingly good if anyone is interested in picking up a spare.
I ended up getting a CCA CRA pair, and they’re surprisingly good too. Currently $22 for a pair with a mic. It was either those, or MOONDROP, but I think either of them would be well worth the 20 bucks
Well, I do.
I imagine phones no longer having headphone jacks isn’t helping the wired headphones market. I’d gladly use wired headphones if it meant I didn’t need to charge mine or worry about them dying on me. Aside from working out, it’s not like the wire is exactly in the way…
I still have 200 euro wired in ear headphones that are my favorite pair so I need to 3,5mm port. But I never got the loud commotion over the disappearance of the port, because you can easily use a 3,5mm to USB-c cable. Having said that,I do still appreciate such a port in my phone because sometimes I forget to take the cable with me or I lose it.
I mean for working out and on the go I use Bluetooth ear buds.
But damn do I sometimes wish I still had a headphone jack on my phone. Like just grabbing my nice pair of open ear headphones, throwing down on the couch and listening to music for example.
And of course I always had backup wired ear buds with me, just in case the battery ran out.
But eh, I can live without the headphone jack, now I just wish they would have used the space for a bigger battery.
I use both wireless and wired, depending on what I’m doing. The earbuds fall out when I’m exercising, but have better call-quality because of the noise canceling.
And I use wired for chatting, when playing games with friends on playstation. And I still have an ipod I use occasionally… so I just kinda have both.
I prefer to have a headphone jack on my phone, but I have a dongle adapter for usb-c, if I want to use my wired ones. I would just prefer not to use the adapter if I didn’t need to, because I’ve already had issues with my phone’s charging port trying to crap-out on me. The charging port isn’t as robust, and you do lose some quality with the dongle. I deal with it just fine; but a headphone jack on a phone might tip me towards purchasing that one, if I were looking to buy a new phone. It depends for me, but it’s not the end of the world, just an inconvenience that could easily be avoided
Some devices cannot use Bluetooth audio devices, or it’s buggy or laggy af. I don’t mind wireless buds for the gym, but they sound worse and die before a flight across the US is complete. Wired headsets so don’t have to be charged, or if they do have ANC, its usually a replacable battery instead of a rechargeable battery.
I dunno if it’s just my Fold 4, but when I ride the train or visit an apartment, I get bombarded by pairing requests from Bose headphones and other bluetooth devices like home speakers. It’s probably some setting that Samsung quietly flipped on in a recent patch, but it’s really annoying. Fuck off, 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚎’𝚜 𝙱𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚀𝚞𝚒𝚎𝚝𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝟺𝟻 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜, I don’t need pairing notifications every 10 seconds.
Pretty sure the market would be bigger if manufacturers didn’t remove the feature in order to push to wireless.
What I like about them is not having a battery, meaning they have a lot less impact on the climate. And it isn’t needed when they are always connected to an other device with a battery that is less than 1m away.
There’s no way I’m spending a lot on a headphone I need to toss in the garbage when the battery becomes useless.
Nah I like em because I’m paranoid. I had paranoiac family who weren’t power users who behaved similarly at the dawn of this shit.
Nowadays there is an earbuds with USB C wireless adapter like Anker Soundcore P10 or JBL Quantum. that is good and no pairing
Nobody knows what they’re missing out on after the early mp3 era conditioned people to be used to shitty audio quality.
Yep. Lots.
Less than you think
Probably not. I’m curious about actual number and not just anecdotes though.
Did you guys notice how many ventors that website shares your data with??
816, oof. The internet is unusable without the proper precautions
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.
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.
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.
I’d much prefer a 3.5mm jack
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.
here’s hoping the next Fairphone finally launches new in the US.
Really would love to finally use one.
Wait, why don’t they launch in the U.S.?
The US market has three big gatekeepers named Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. They charge huge money to certify devices to work on their networks. No certification and phones won’t work properly for mission-critical stuff like VoLTE, VoWiFi, and in some cases 5G. Without these features, no-one will buy the phones.
You also need to be selling a big number of those phones to eat the cost of all that certification. And what do you know, the telcos operate the stores that sell the lion’s share of phones in the US market.
All that adds up to niche handsets only working on 1 or 2 of the telcos, or only partially, and only selling direct to consumer or on Amazon or Best Buy or wherever in negligible numbers.
And that’s why you can’t buy a Fairphone at retail in the US.
I’m not sure, I assume due to the lock in to carrier stores in the US? Or just expenses of doing business. I can’t even order those earbuds to the US.
there is the fairphone 4 on Murena with e/os/ but they don’t even have fairphone 5 😭
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
With removable batteries, you can swap in a fresh pair. Not ideal, but a possibility now.
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
