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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   5649 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

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Seeking (non-technical) input on what I should do with my possibly faulty Google Pixel Buds Pro.

I bought the Pixel Buds Pro three weeks ago on sale for $150 (MSRP $200). It's been mostly satisfactory, except about a week ago, without any obvious cause (i.e. software update, drop damage, water damage), when I took them out of the case and into my ear to take a call, the right earbud suddenly developed continuous noisy crackling. I believe the left bud may have been affected to a much smaller extent. Cycling through the active noise cancellation on/off didn't do anything. The problem seemed to be with the buds and not a phone app, as Spotify and podcasts all had the same crackling issue.

I put the buds back into the case, closed it, and took them out. The problem immediately went away. Great. I thought it was worrisome that such new devices had issues, but hoped that it'd be a one-time thing.

Unfortunately, this morning the same thing happened again. When I took them out of the case ahead of a workout, the crackling returned, mostly in the right earbud. I cycled through active noise cancellation, disconnected and reconnected bluetooth on my phone, and even put it back in the case and closed it. Nothing did the trick. Neither did "forgetting" the device--the unconnected buds crackled while untethered to anything. I checked firmware and it was up to date.

It was only when I hard reset the buds in their case (press and hold bluetooth button for 30s etc.) and repaired that the problem went away.

So my question to The Motte is, what would you do now? Google allows free returns for refunds for up to 30 days, so I have less than a week to do so. Google also has a one-year warranty. I'd rather not bother with finding a box to package the buds, print a label, drop it off at Fedex/UPS, reorder a new pair etc. But I fear that not doing anything now out of laziness will mean the problem returns a week from now, or maybe a month, with me eventually stuck with a lemon outside of the return/warranty period.

Google (the search engine) does not return super obvious answers--i.e., this does not appear to be a super common software problem that will be fixed by a firmware update in a week, or a super common hardware problem that requires a return.

I realize this is a trivial question, but we make trivial decisions every day that have substantive consequences, so I'm hoping to improve my decision making. So what would you do personally if you're in my situation?

What I would do myself: I'd go "yeah I knew it, wireless earbuds are a stupid product" and go back to wired forever. I personally think that wired earbuds are just a flat out superior product and many times cheaper to boot.

I don't suspect that's on the table for you, though (else you probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place). So given that you probably want to stay wireless, I would stay the course for now. Maybe return them to Google if you feel you would rather get another brand considering the issues, but otherwise keep them and see what happens. If they do indeed start acting up again, don't try to fix them or troubleshoot, send them in for warranty repair/replacement. You aren't responsible for trying to fix their broken product, that's what a warranty is for.

I'm as far of the opposite opinion as possible, wires are incredibly frustrating for anything but sitting still. Connecton and battery problems every day are preferable to occasionally ripping your ear buds out when the wire gets caught on something.

I can't say I've ever had that problem, though I'm almost never actually moving around while listening to music or whatever on my phone. Earbuds are for sitting in the car or on a plane or what have you, not for going on walks (not that I really do much of that either, lol).

Right, I'm frequently in a gym with many awkward shaped bits of iron everywhere for wires to catch on or on runs or commuting. Wireless is king when moving. And really it's freeing around the house as well, I have over the ears and buds tethered to my basement desktop and nice Bluetooth radio and can go anywhere in my home while still able to listen. Most of my engagement on themotte is text to speech fed through a wireless headset while doing chores.

Yeah, most of those are simply use cases where I don't actually want to listen to my phone. Barring commuting, where I can easily plug my phone into my car. So no real advantage to wireless earbuds in that scenario. Your last point is especially curious to me, because that sounds like a downright hellish way to interact with anything. I think we are simply wired very, very differently as far as our desired use cases go.

Your last point is especially curious to me, because that sounds like a downright hellish way to interact with anything.

It works out better than you'd think, especially since on the new site there is much less garbage that gets copied when you highlight multiple posts. You can more or less highlight a thread, throw it into ttsreader.com and go wash the dishes or vacuum the house while listening to discussions. I mentally flag points I'd like to come back and comment on. My nemesis are naked links.

It's not much different to a podcast.

Wow, this might be the worst take. Wireless earbuds were a shockingly huge improvement for me on headphones as a product. I spend an astonishing amount of time with one earbud in use cases where I couldn't use wired headphones.

I can't really conceive of wireless earbuds being an improvement, but hey if it works for you then great. For me, there's no advantage in them. Being wireless is useless to me because in the (very rare) case I am actually moving around, my phone is on my person. So for my own usage, there's no upside and considerable downsides in the form of needing charging/connection issues/can lose them easily.

Have you tried them? Genuinely having them changed my potential uses.

No. I'm not really in the habit of spending a good amount of money on something I don't have a use case for, after all. ;)

Get cheap ones. These are 25$ and seem closest to the ones I bought five years ago

So many uses I didn't think of that wouldn't be practical with wired buds. Like driving in a convertible or shopping in a store with one in for a podcast/book without losing awareness.

The car thing kind of confuses me, because cars already have sound systems. Who is using earbuds in the car?

As for the store scenario, I don't listen to things (as in have no desire to) while I'm out and about. So that isn't something I would ever do.

Good to know that cheap ones exist though. I at least would be willing to drop $25 to try it. Most likely outcome (imo) is that they sit in my car/drawer/pocket and get no use, but $25 isn't much of a loss.

Who is using earbuds in the car?

Convertible, can't really make out a podcast on the car speakers over the wind on the highway. Which is something I never would have thought of before owning them, which is the thing: you'll find your use case after you own it.

Kind of like carrying a multi-tool. So many of the situations I use it in were things I didn't even notice before I was carrying it.

More comments

What I would do myself: I'd go "yeah I knew it, wireless earbuds are a stupid product" and go back to wired forever.

I use wired headphones with a USB dongle on my Pixel 6. There's a loud white noise effect that plays whenever the volume falls below a certain threshold.

I refuse to buy any phone without a headphone jack. If they ever stop making them entirely, then I guess I will stop buying phones or something? I don't know, really. But the point is that I don't get phones that chose to reject a universal standard that worked great in favor of making people use a dongle.

I hear that. The headphone jack was a great standard. You could bring along a cheap male-male cable and interface with nearly any device with a speaker.

The good news is that Bluetooth in the current year is that universal standard. It's supported by as many, if not more devices. I initially thought charging the headphones would be annoying, but I find I rarely need to do it. The charging case keeps them topped up. Plus, you can still use your wired headphones with a lapel clip BT adapter. It's much better than trying to use the awkward phone port ones that always come loose.

That's the thing, though, it's not universal like the headphone jack was (or even close really). My car doesn't even have an aux input jack, let alone bluetooth! I have to use a tape deck adapter (which, naturally, uses a headphone jack). Granted, my car is 21 years old, but there are a ton of legacy devices hanging around which don't support bluetooth. Maybe in 20 years bluetooth will be as universal as headphone jacks are today. But for the moment, it is really unfortunate that short-sighted manufacturers have opted to get rid of one of the very few connections you can reasonably expect damn near everything to have.

Are you sticking to wired with the help of USB/lightning phone adapters? Your days may be numbered, since they'll probably be getting rid of all physical ports soon!

I refuse to buy any phone without a headphone jack.

That sounds (ha!) like hardware, not software. A loose connection or degraded capacitor.

Were I in your position, I'd probably do the same thing and overthink it.

I suggest sending it for the warranty. It's not going to get better via an update or anything.

Update: I called warranty and they are issuing a replacement. Ironically, the moment I used the buds for the call, the crackling returned.

Interestingly, when I asked the Google rep if this was a known issue, he actually said yes. He even said it was supposed to be fixed via firmware, but given mine was the latest, they'd have to swap it. I will say that the rep was a little diffident in his delivery of his answer--like I think there is a 20% chance he was making it up and/or just being agreeable when I asked if this was a known issue.

The hope is it wouldn't get worse, but the fool-me-once-fool-me-twice rule probably applies :)

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