Hello @grunge_fox
It takes 2h to charge the charging case, and I haven’t measured the earbuds themselves but I would estimate 45 m to get a full charge.
I’ll run some tests with mine and come back to you 
I haven’t asked myself these questions
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German reviews say with a 10min charge of the buds in the case you gain 1.5 hours of use…
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Is it possible to completely inactivate the touch controls?
I live in northern Sweden so I have to be able to use them underneath a beanie without the touch controls activating from a combination of hat material and moisture.
If you ever make an updated pair of Fairbuds, please do real buttons. They are so much better. Can be used with gloves and won’t
activate by accident from a plethora of reasons as touch controls do.
With that said, these seem very well made and I really appreciate what you’re doing! 
Thank you.
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How big would such buttons be? Cant imagine that this works well. Agree a beanie should not cause a touch though. This is possible in general, at least my other brand inears seem to not easily take action by a none skin touch. beanies are btw not only used in Sweden😉
I have sometimes wished for a LOCK functionaility on my current Fairphone TWS earbuds (the first incarnation), too. And even more often: some way to check which ANC mode is currently on (without having to switch through all three modes anew just to find out …).
However, the only ways I can think of to realize such functionality would probably be either through the source device (read: my Fairphone) or a voice assistant taking my commands.
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The logo on the Beats Fit Pro is a physical button.
The only functionality you (might) lose is the ability to change the volume via the earbuds themselves, if you only have one physical button. But play/pause/play previous/play next surely has to be the most used and most important functions.
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I would be OK if they didn’t add licenced codecs if they added OPUS but they didnt, what gives! Also LC3 is just a codec from the same company behind MP3 and AAC. Its not the same as LC3plus.
We want licence free open source codec like OPUS, google added support so others should also add it.
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I guess most have realized this early on, but just to clarify for anyone still wondering: The Fairbuds app for the new Fairbuds is the same app that was originally launched for the Fairbuds XL (see final screenshot below). I just noticed an app update for this today on my Fairphone 3+ running /e/OS. Here are some screen shots from /e/OS’s App Lounge (thus the App Lounge ratings) that accesses the Google Play Store anonymously:
The app can be downloaded and installed without Fairbuds nor Fairbuds XL present (tested on an FP2 running /e/OS Android 11).
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So that probably means no customization of touch controls. Shame.
I’d really like to have more sustainable earbuds. I’m on my 4th pair and it feels like you need to replace them every year. But it all boils down to
- how good is the sound
- how good is nc
- how good is voice / talking and noise reduction in calls
- customization options in the app
- latency and codec support
Unfortunately, FP’s previous Earbud productions haven’t been satisfying for me.
I got the old FP TWS Earbuds with my FP4 back then. Initially, I used them a lot and really tried to like them. But both NC and Voice quality / noise reduction just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t make calls or video conferences reliably with them. Whenever there were even slight background noises nobody could understand me and I also had trouble understanding others. Then the latency was abysmal. When listening to music that’s not a problem. But I definitely noticed it when watching shows and also during calls. A latency of ~ >100ms leads to disruptions in conversations.
Also I despise touch controls, with a passion. They never work reliably and always get in the way. Doesn’t matter whether they are on in-ear buds, or full-size over-ear headsets. They just are a pain. So for me, customization options for touch controls and even the possibility to disable them completely is a must.
While the TWS earbuds were not that bad per se, all these shortcomings together really make them unusable for me. If I need a 2nd pair just for specific use cases, nothing is gained. Currently I am using the Soundcore Liberty 4 NC. Their quality for NC and calls is really superb. The app allows me to completely customize touch controls, including disabling it altogether. All that individually for each bud! Latency is also good and they also have a low latency “gaming” mode. Not as good as aptXhd, but still quite good.
that’s how to do touch controls on in-ear earbuds
Then there were the fairbuds XL. Personally, I thought sound, NC, voice and even latency was quite good on these. So FP seems capable in the audio department. I also really like the control knob on the XL (seriously, every headphone should have these). But what killed the XL for me was the omission of a headphone jack. An over-ear headphone must have a 3.5 minijack. No exceptions, No excuses. Period. in the over-ear department I also ended up with Soundcore and their Space One.
So, while I am very curious and cautiously optimistic about the new Fairbuds, I guess I’ll stick to my Liberty 4 until they die, and then let’s see how FP Fairbuds improve.
What I want to see:
- customization options for touch controls in the app
- low latency codecs / support
I guess that could all be achieved through updates.
Oh, and yeah. Open Source the App and better yet even the Firmware of the buds. Open Source is an important aspect of sustainability. I already get proprietary garbage with my garbage Chinese earbuds. I expect better from Fairphone.
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today i received my new fairbuds, installed the app… there was a new firmware update, which i installed… the buds powered down to restart… but never did… and it seems i just BRICKED the buds!
reset, taking out all the batteries, nothing brings them back to life.
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@all please respond to the issue in the dedicated help topic
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About this size, like on the old days wired earphones cord-mics, maybe a bit smaller, it would totally fit:
And with a much lighter force to register, maybe 5-15 mg? (I think a common keyboard key is 60 mg?)
I’m sure waterproofing is not an issue either, but maybe someone has evidence of the contrary
(I talk more about this in my long post above, where about half of it is ranting about not having physical buttons on the tws-earbuds)
I can’t agree more, everything you said here is exactly on point.
I’ll check out those Liberty buds if the fairbuds don’t reassure me in the coming months/1year.
Still, good job Fairphone for the excellent work on the replaceable batteries, that’s definitely new, and it looked like a really hard problem (always criticising is too easy no?)
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Yes the size is probably like this. I could see the buttons on the wire and check what I press. So while it might be possible to have small tiny little buttons, I personally dont see, it would be easy to use them. I guess there are different preferences out there and I think I find it easier to just e.g. double tap on the surface instead of needing to blindly search on a relatively small surface for a small button and/or to push the bud each time deeper into my ear when pressing a button.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: New fairbuds in-ears - firmware update bricks the buds ?!
First brief (2.5 minutes) iFixit Fairbuds disassembly teardown video is online:
While for now, there’s no photos-and-text article, the video does allow a very nice and clear visual insight into the internals.
(Found by @tretkowski)
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A nice found. There seems to be the mistake on IP rating though, at least in subtitles. I will listen to it later on to check the audio
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The iFixit video is now embedded in an iFixit article (currently featured on their start page):
It does not add a whole flood of extra information, but at least this: As German news channel n-tv had already pointed out, the two earbuds’ batteries can be replaced not just through Fairphone’s shop, but from more general outlets as well. The IP rating is now correctly stated: IP54. And last but not least they actually see some room for trying out some other tiny parts (like other USB-C ports) to replace Fairphone’s original parts.
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A post was split to a new topic: Fairbuds crash every few minutes
