EDIT : I was advised to add a tl;dr so the rest can be skipped. So:
tl;dr: I hope the fairbuds will be re-programmable. I use the tws-earbuds (the old version) a lot and would really like some features to be changeable. e.g. the functions like the “auto-pause”. What the presses do. The voice that talks. The charge levels and charge speed.
FInally, I hate capacitive buttons, but that’s maybe not everyone.
Otherwise the tws-earbuds do their job. Today I would probably buy the new fairbuds if I was confident all those annoyances could be avoided.
Please make the firmware or at least the control-app FOSS damnit.
Thanks for reading
The full post:
Hi, I’m a very regular user of the tws-earbuds since September on my still barely running FP2, fairphone’s “test-earbuds” before those (see this page for reference: https://shop.fairphone.com/tws-earbuds ).
I’m very intersested by the new fairbuds, and was planning to give feedback on the tws-earbuds at one stage, but hey, time flies, I’ve had other fish to fry, and the fairbuds are now out.
My tws-earbuds work in a satisfactory way (they basically saved my FP2), but there are some feature that give me literal hate vibes every time I use them. I expect those things to be customisable on the new fairbuds, and if they’re not, nor the control app FOSS (is it confirmed ?), I think you’re missing a great opportunity.
Here’s a more or less exhaustive list of things wrong:
- Those stupid touch capacitive all surface buttons. Once every 3 times I manipulate the buds, it triggers a “click” of some kind. If this isn’t annoying enough, I can’t press them consistently when they’re in my ears, because I can’t see them, and I can’t just try to find the surface to press with my fingers because if I accidentely touch the surface anywhere it just triggers a press! (annoying e.g. when I sometimes want a long one and not a short one). And then, it’s so slow to trigger ! I have to sometimes spend several seconds just to get the action I want done!!
So my main question/point is: Why can’t we have regular buttons ? I could aim before pressing. I could press fast. I would not press them by mistake. I could press them with any kind of gloves/handprotection. So, just, whyyyyyy those stupid capacitive surfaces? (note: it’s the first time I ever use something like this, so maybe the design on the new fairbuds is so much better. But I’m not sure I’d believe it.)
And don’t make me believe the reason is waterproofing, siliconed-waterproof buttons have existed for ages. - Not being able to re-configure the presses is really annoying (here for reference: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/8502264489105 ). I don’t need noise cancelling for example (plus it doesn’t seem to change much) so I’d like to be able to cycle between “normal” and “voice-through” only. And disable the voice-assistant function, and instead have a “skip forward 30 seconds” and “skip backwards 10 seconds” option for podcasts on each side, etc. I have tons of ideas to improve the things.
- Disable the “auto-pause when removed”. Sometimes it’s useful, but 90% of the time it triggers when I don’t want it. I’d much rather have a “pause” button on each earbud, instead of only on the right side.
- Disable the talking voice altogether! I don’t need my whole listening experience dimmed by this voice, when a few mild “dup” or “dup dup” could convey the same amount of information to me.
- Better control of charge levels and speed. If I want to make those last, I’ll want to limit charge at 80% (but maybe you do that already ?), set charge min/max levels, and even further reduce li-ion charge voltage (to make it last much much longer, for a “maximum capacity reduction” I wouldn’t mind. See: BU-808b: What Causes Li-ion to Die? - Battery University “NASA reports that once Li-ion passes the 8 year mark after having delivered about 40,000 cycles in a satellite, cell deterioration […] progresses quickly. Charging to 3.92V/cell appears to provide the best compromise in term of maximum longevity, but this reduces the capacity to only about 60 percent” → I be fine with that for earbuds for basically infinite battery duration), etc.
Now I do realise I’m not the only one, see for example:
So I hope I’m not hijacking too much this fairbuds thread, don’t hesitate to move this post elsewhere. But I thought it was a nice opportunity to bring up those issues and push to have them avoided for the fairbuds. I understand for the physical buttons it may be a bit late, but for all the rest please at least just make this app/firmware open-source and let people play with all those options, if you can’t/don’t want to support this level of customisation.
As a conclusion, the tws-earbuds have been mostly usable for me, and done their job. But I now wouldn’t go for another model unless I can test it first, or have enough guarantees that the annoyances above aren’t present.