Amazon Echo Buds (1st Gen) - Review 2022

Editors' Notation: At that place is a new version of the Echo Buds available. Cheque out the Amazon Echo Buds (second Gen)Amazon Repeat Buds (2d Gen).

Wire-free earphones are actually hitting their stride, with a wide range of solid choices available for $l to $300, each with their ain unique features and benefits. Amazon'due south new Echo Buds endeavor to offer a piffling bit of everything, and they largely succeed. These true wireless earphones have hands-complimentary Alexa phonation control, Bose-tuned active noise reduction, and a remarkably comfortable fit, all for simply $129.99. Audio performance isn't quite every bit strong every bit other models in this price range, only if you desire a pair of wireless earbuds that check pretty much every box in the features department, the Echo Buds are an astonishing deal.

Design

The Echo Buds are uncomplicated, unassuming footling earpieces with plain black plastic shells and no Amazon branding. Three pairs of silicone eartips and 3 pairs of ear fins can fit on or around each earpiece. Afterwards finding the right combination of tips and fins, I found the Echo Buds to offer 1 of the all-time fits I've experienced in this category, staying snugly and properly angled in my ear canal without any irritation or tightness.

Despite the comfortable fit, be careful if you wear the Echo Buds at the gym; they have simply an IPX4 rating, which means they're sweat-resistant, but yous tin't rinse them off. To be fair, the Bose SoundSport Free has the aforementioned rating, though the Jaybird Vista and JBL UA True Wireless Wink are both fully waterproof (IPX7).

The back console of each earpiece is sensitive to touch, and four input gestures are available: double-tap either panel, or tap and hold either console. You can program what these gestures practice in the Alexa app, including switching between noise-reducing and pass-through modes, manually activating Alexa or Google Assistant/Siri (depending on your phone), play/pause, skip a track, go dorsum a rail, or mute the microphones. There are no book controls on the Buds, though y'all tin tell Alexa to arrange the book, which nosotros'll detail in the next section.

According to Amazon, the Echo Buds can terminal up to v hours on a charge, which is pretty average for wire-free earphones. The included charging instance adds another three full charges, and provides a identify to go along the earphones when not in employ. It's a pocket-sized, flip-open matte black plastic box about the size of an Altoids tin can, bearing the only real Amazon branding on the product: a glossy blackness smiling arrow symbol on the top. The right side of the case has a micro USB port for charging, and the bottom has a button for displaying battery level, which appears equally a multicolor LED on the front end. Be careful if you lot use the earfins; getting the charging contacts to sit down properly confronting the pins in the case tin can exist a bit fiddly when they're on.

Easily-Gratuitous Alexa

The big deal with the Echo Buds is easily-gratis Alexa access. In one case you ready things up in the Alexa app, yous tin can then issue voice commands without needing to touch a thing. Just say, "Alexa," and look for a chime, and so enquire a question or speak a command merely as if yous were talking to any other Amazon device.

As long as the Repeat Buds are continued to your phone and your phone has an net connectedness, Alexa will provide nearly all of the functions that it offers on Echo smart speakers. That includes answering questions for full general information like conditions and traffic, checking calendars and to-do lists, controlling smart dwelling house devices, and using various third-party skills, from calling a cab or ordering pizza. Alexa will too play audiobooks from Aural and music from Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, TuneIn, and Tidal. Other audio apps tin can play through the earphones over Bluetooth, but you accept to utilise your phone. You tin besides utilise Alexa to punch phone numbers or send texts afterwards you sync your contacts with Amazon.

The Echo Buds provide a unique hands-free benefit that doesn't apply to Echo speakers: Navigation. You can ask Alexa to look upward a location, and it will provide turn-by-plow walking directions (considering you shouldn't habiliment earphones while driving).

Bose Noise Reduction

The other notable aspect of the Echo Buds is the inclusion of Bose active racket reduction. Amazon is quick to indicate out that this isn't the aforementioned every bit active noise cancellation (ANC), like you discover in the $400 Bose Racket Cancelling Headphones 700, so you lot shouldn't expect the all-encompassing elimination of outside sounds here like you can on the company's ANC products.

The active dissonance reduction on the Repeat Buds indeed reduces racket, but doesn't produce silence. The Echo Buds won't make part churr sound like a distant whisper, but they reduce information technology quite a bit, as well as the loud rumble of trains and other vehicles. In testing, I plant it to be about on par with Sony's $230 WF-1000XM3 earphones, which is impressive. This is partly due to the excellent, secure fit of the Echo Buds; Sony's ANC circuitry might be capable, but I couldn't get the fin-gratis WF-1000XM3 earpieces to fit deeply plenty to ensure consistent noise isolation.

Music Performance

Playing our bass test runway, The Knife's "Silent Shout," at maximum (and borderline unsafe) volume levels, the bass synth notes and kick pulsate hits don't distort at all on the Repeat Buds. The kicking pulsate manages to feel surprisingly booming, for a deep, circular sound that doesn't quite attain into sub-bass levels, but comes close.

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This depth, strangely, only seems to employ with very deep sub-bass, as more small bass levels sound underserved by the Echo Buds. In The Crystal Method's "Built-in As well Tiresome," the driving bass drum sounds slightly poppy, but it doesn't become much ability in the lower frequencies to actually make it thump. The vocals stay in the front of the mix, which is slightly odd for a fast, electronic runway like this. It isn't a bad sound at all, but the lower and higher frequencies are a fleck lacking.

Yes' "Roundabout" sounds very good on the Echo Buds, though it also shows the earphones' relative limits in the extremes. The busy mix is nicely balanced, letting the hi-hat, vocals, and guitar strums get enough attention against the bassline, though they lack much of a well-baked edge to assist them retain their position and avoid getting slightly muddled. The opening acoustic guitar plucks get some cord texture, but there isn't significant high-frequency finesse, and the notes don't get much low-mid resonance, either. It's a capable sound signature that lets every part of the mix come through, but it doesn't smooth with clarity or depth.

Buds of All Trades

The Amazon Repeat Buds offering more than for the price than any other pair of wire-free earphones we've tested, with a comfortable, exceptionally secure fit, hands-free Alexa voice control, and solid active noise reduction for $130. They even sound pretty skilful, though they don't quite take the sonic finesse or power of similarly priced options like the $130 Samsung Galaxy Buds or $120 JBL Endurance Peak. If you want wire-gratuitous listening that offers a bit of everything, however, the Echo Buds are an excellent choice.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/headphones/34709/amazon-echo-buds

Posted by: hancockfastir.blogspot.com

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