What can be more wireless than a Bluetooth headphone? One that truly has no wires at all. In fact, there’s nothing to connect the left and right sides of Earin’s wireless earbuds! There’s only just that two pieces of awesomeness that goes into your ears. It seems like a really cool earbuds. Are they any good?
The Earin wireless earbuds came to life in the form of a Kickstarter project. Like many other Kickstarter project, it was unsurprising that the Earin was late. But better late than never. The Earin delivered. Today, the Earin can be found in retail channels. They are even available for sale here in Singapore.
Bluetooth headphones are really nice, but the Earin takes wireless to the next level. The two pieces of earbuds are probably the most minimalist you can get.
Earin’s packaging is really slick. it comes in this nice little box made of compressed paper. The box features a magnetic closure so the cover just snaps into place.
On the inside of the lid, you get setup instructions, replacing the need for useless pieces of quick setup information that you only need once.
Setup is no different from any other Bluetooth headphone. Well, actually, it is a little bit different, because technically your music playing device pairs with only the left Earin earbud. The left earbud then pushes music to the right earbud. You don’t really need to know about this, though.
The Earin earbuds are switched on as soon as it’s out of its charging case, which is that beautiful shiny metal tube. The charging case, of course, also serves as a carrying case. It’s important, because the Earin wireless earbuds would get lost too easily in your bag, or if you just put it in your pockets.
The charging case is actually a tiny battery bank that recharges the even tinier batteries inside the Earin earbuds. The earbuds each contain a 68 mAh battery, while the charging case itself has a 600 mAh battery. Whenever you’re not using the Earin earbuds, you keep it in the case, and that recharges the earbuds at the same time. You need to do that because the 68 mAh batteries in the Earin earbuds themselves are good for only 3 hrs, perhaps a little less in my real world use.
The charging case adds about 10 hours of use in total. It is itself recharged via a standard Micro-USB port. Separate LED indicators show you which, the earbuds themselves or the charging case, are being charged.
In terms of build quality, the Earin seems pretty robust. It won’t particularly score points on its design. The charging case, on the other hand, looks and feels really good. The machined aluminium looks really nice.
The Earin wireless earbuds come with Comply foam tips. I love Comply foam tips. They give a good seal to the earbuds and offer great noise isolation from the environment. They also do help keep the earbuds firmly planted in your ears. Unfortunately, only one set of Comply foam tips are supplied. The tips do have different sizes, and considering that fit is important, it would have been good for the a whole set of Comply foam tips to be included.
In terms of sound quality, the Earin wireless earbuds are pretty good. The bass presence is clearly evident. This is helped much with good fitting Comply foam tips. The midrange comes across freely. The treble sounds a little weak to me. Overall, the Earin presents a warm sound signature which works well for casual music listening. It won’t replace a good pair of wired in-ear monitors, but then, the Earin’s selling point is about not having wires.
Now for the downsides. There are no physical controls. That’s not that bad per se, but it does mean you need to pull out your smartphone or reach for your computer to adjust volume, skip tracks, or do anything at all.
I also found that the wireless Bluetooth connection isn’t completely stable. In particular, sometimes there are like strange artefacts to the sound. Perhaps it could be trouble with the wireless connection. Wireless signals, for example, may not travel through the human head very well to get from the left to the right earbuds.
The Earin has a companion app for both iOS and Android. The app gives you the option of turning on a bass boost feature, as well as to check battery levels in each earbud. Neither of these features are absolutely necessary, in my opinion, and I’d personally prefer not to have too many single-purpose or product-specific app clutter my smartphone.
The Earin retails for S$349. It is available exclusively online at truewireless.sg.
If you want to get more wireless than your current Bluetooth headphone, this is it.
Conclusion
Earin did an excellent job with their wireless earbuds, and its performance exceeded my expectations.
Pros:
- No wires, no tangles
- Pretty good sound quality
- Build quality and useful charging case
Cons:
- Lack controls
- Bluetooth connection isn’t completely stable