Product feedback after first days

sman

I think this is fair feedback, but we are also literally seeing a small team trying to compete with teams of hundreds, if not thousands of people. If we truly support nothing, we accept that it’s a young company who will need to take a few hits to learn important lessons to serve people better down the line. No one gets it perfect from the start, especially if you’re a small company where costs are high and you don’t have ‘big league’ budget yet. That said, for a company that has never done this before.. it’s an impressive package for the consumer that will only get better over time.

For sure though, the team will have to go back to the drawing board and look to fit in software QA at the hardware level early and often to de-risk moments leading up to launches. The design and technology will need to move on parallel tracks, vs in phases to maximize an optimal outcome without bottlenecks. But again, it’s a small team who just wants to make great products for people, and I have confidence they can do it.

The good news is a lot of these issues can be rectified via software updates. There are so many audio ‘experts’ out there on tuning for IEMs (ie, Crinacle, etc) that it would be awesome if nothing could borrow their wisdom. There’s so much great info on forums and subreddits nowadays that it’s a shame more ‘big league’ companies don’t take advantage of that more often, but I have a feeling nothing will. It’s crowdsourced trust that will separate this company from the others.

Took my time to review the ear(1). They are pretty cool. Let me talk about the pros and cons

Pros -

1. The design is pretty cool. I mean, I walked around outdoor with ear(1) and everybody loved the design. There isn’t any better tws product to do as such.
2. The sound quality is good. Merging up with teenage engineering is the best possible way to get the audio output right. The sound is crisp and clear.
3. The charging speed and the charge on the earbuds are well enough. I don’t expect them to be exceptional as they offer decent battery life.
4. Talking about Noise cancellation, most of the people didn’t like that much in this device. I too felt the same. But at this price point you shouldn’t expect more. They have done a pretty good job on this. Although they are some bugs, I would mention on the cons.
5. I have also tested the calling feature indoors and outdoors. Indoors they are fine. They have mentioned that they can cancel the noise even at 40km/hr. That is just not true. The caller on the other side had heard a lot of noise while on call.
6. But I think the product is worth the price.

Now there are a few cons, of which some can be solved through software updates.

1. Latency- I noticed a little bit of latency even while playing YouTube. It is quite negligible, but it is what it is.
2. There is an issue with the noise cancellation feature. It automatically shifts from transparency to noise cancellation and vice versa. It is just irritating.
3. Dual connection is just not there. Switching between devices is the most important aspect in terms of bluetooth devices. Even budget devices offer switching between devices.
4. The earbud won’t charge sometimes until unless they are plugged to adapter. This is just not good.
5. The app needs to be improved a lot. I mean, there is no custom equaliser, the battery indication on the app is the worst.
6. Ear detection does not work sometimes for me.

These all can be solved through software updates. But, there is one thing that cannot be solved. It’s the scratches on the case. It is a plastic case and the quality is not good. Even though they are on smooth surfaces and on cloth type material, scratches appear. I ordered a body protector from gadget shields for protection.

Overall I love the product. But, if all the bugs are solved through software updates mentioned above, it just would be great.

Ok, now the ear(1) has been updated to the latest firmware update. I have again tested them a couple of hours and issues which I had while using them before. Let me briefly explain them.

1. The in ear detection while putting them on and taking them out is improved a little bit. Although the music doesn’t stop quickly, it is okay and fine for most.
2. The battery indicator and charging the bud has been solved for me. Atleast until now.
3. Now talking about sound, I mean, wow. I am using a OnePlus phone. They have Dolby Atmos enabled by default. If you have any OnePlus phone or any other device that has equaliser, just turn that off. Somebody already mentioned this, but I didn’t notice much of a difference before the update. Teenage engineering has done a very good job in terms of sound.
4. Before I mentioned that the noise cancellation is kind of sus. It always shifts from transparency to noise cancellation and back. After the update I didn’t face that issue. I went out and tested them, they don’t shift now as before. I like that.
5. I also played YouTube videos. Before it had little bit of latency which is ignorable. But after the update I didn’t get any latency.
6. I had given them to my friends to test them out. He always listens to them above 80% volume. Now here’s a thing. There is a bit of sound leakage. At 100% volume you can clearly hear the beat. This can’t be updated through a software. But I’m okay with it. Although most of the people don’t Listen at 100%. It’s fine. I’m just mentioning.

I am mentioning again. Just turn off your current equaliser and Dolby Atmos on mobile and try them. I give a big thumbs up to TEENAGE ENGINEERING here.

Now I can easily recommend them to my friends or family. I hope everyone gets their hands on and post the reviews. Looking forward to that. Cheers to ear(1) .