I’d much prefer a 3.5mm jack
Wired 3.5mm jack.
Hear me out. I don’t use Bluetooth headphones. They don’t last the commute and work day.
With a jack you can listen and charge you phone at the same time and never worry about charging your headphones/iem.
If I need to use Bluetooth for connection I still can but overall better battery life
If you add a 3,5mm jack to those small earbuds, there definitely won’t be any space for a battery. It’s one or the other.
I think he meant having the 3,5 mm jack in a phone.
I’d give up the space of a battery for a jack, yes
The buds don’t need a jack. Just the lead that connects to the phone or whatever. That takes no real space.
Just to be pedantic; a battery is significantly larger than 2 tiny wires of copper. The battery is almost 50% of the volume in the earbud.
With removable batteries, you can swap in a fresh pair. Not ideal, but a possibility now.
One thing sibling comments miss is how you can offer a jack & them, as a user, can still use whatever style you want & disregard the jack. It’s a cheap part that takes up some volume but not enough to force an entire redesign. But when manufacturers remove the jack, you are forced users into consuming either the wireless earbuds (that they all ‘conveniently’ sell branded) or cosuming a dongle which takes up the one charging port, are unruly in a way that puts additional stress on the port & make the wires hang awkwardly. Almost all other gear with audio that isn’t a modern smartphone includes the jack which means you can’t bring your existing gear—or it starts prompting every apparatus to start adding Bluetooth capabilities which includes the latency, flakiness, slow pairing but also the security & fingerprinting issues of keeping devices with Bluetooth always on in the first place. Even with replaceable batteries, you still need microcontrollers & firmware delivery.
That is to say, if Fairphone cared about sustainability, they can offer a better earbud on repairability (pressing doubt on the frequency-response curve tho), but they should still be offering a jack on their phones since wired headphones/IEMs are a more sustainable (& private & secure) personal audio option.
Which ones are you referring to? What’s is your actual use time, like 8+ hours a day without charging? I use cheap generic MPOW ones I got for $40 and they easily last me at least 2 days
fun edit:
With a jack you can listen and charge you phone at the same time
With wireless headphones you can also charge your phone and listen at the same time
With wireless headphones you can also charge your phone and listen at the same time
Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that if I want to use wired headphones, I can’t charge my phone. Something I was able to do before, and now it’s a “privilege” for wireless users. It’s bullshit.
What phone do you have where you can’t charge it and use wired headphones?!
I might be out of the loop lol. Is that an iPhone thing? I use android.
I don’t own one. I had to buy one without a phone jack out of necessity (needed a phone right that second), but that’s what I’ve been hearing. You need a dongle to connect your wired earbuds, and while you’re using the dongle, you can’t charge your phone.
Has this changed?
You can buy a USB-C splitter or replace your current dongle with one that gives you the exact ports you want.
For example, the Belkin Rockstar is USB-C to USB-C+3.5mm jack. It’s $40 but there are a ton of cheaper options - JSAUX has a few for $15 or so on Amazon, and there are other no-name branded versions out there for around $10ish.
Problem solving: 2 in 1 Samsung USB Type C to 3.5mm Headphone and Charger Adapter for Galaxy S23/S22/S21/S24,60W PD USB C to Aux Audio Jack Dongle Cable Android Phone Fast Charging Cord for iPhone 15,Google Pixel 8/7a https://a.co/d/6dewjjB
JFC y’all are dumb. Just get a goddamn splitter. It’s not “privilege” that you get to keep using lead paint in your house, when you can do the same thing without the drawbacks or the lead.
It’s not “privilege” that you get to keep using lead paint in your house, when you can do the same thing without the drawbacks or the lead.
What a weak ass analogy. A mini-jack doesn’t harm anybody.
How can you say that! It harms the shareholders of wireless earphones manufacturers!
So… I was more referring to a 3.5mm jack on the phone.
Commute time is a little over 2hours each way. Office use is 6-8 hours. Listening + calls and needing a microphone.
Would rather not to have to do the dance for multiple devices and chargers vs just one and a single usb input.
Some of the bushes and trains have a usb but you have to get lucky and then decide what needs charging more…the phone or the buds.
Give me a wired option any day. Also used less battery power and sounds better.
Unrelated, but how do you tolerate that length of commute every day? I’d last 3 days before either looking for a new job or a new house.
Well… It’s not a commute that I need to do every day. Also I can (to some extent) work on that commute as the majority of it is on an inter-urban train. Timeboxing tasks to 30 mins or an hour can be quite productive. That said, having decent music and or noise blocking configured for your environment helps a lot. I highly recommend these guys - I have their full app and being able to dial just the right frequencies to deal with whatever is bugging you is amazing…
That said, without my device and quality headphones/iem I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.
But any reason to prefer wireless is sort of moot because having a 3.5mm jack doesn’t preclude a wireless headphone feature.
looks kinda cool. will probably get them
If they launch a phone similar to zenphone 10. I’ll def buy it.
ASUS removed the ability to unlock or root their most recent phones. Not letting users run what they want on the device they own is a hard pass from me.
Wtf! Omg fuck these companies
At least the 10 never had the ability. The 9’s ability was yanked in the middle of its lifecycle. I was 🤏 close to buying a 9 on the 10’s release for a discount & I am so glad I opened a second tab to check what the unlock process would be like before a purchase only remembering not long after release the was an OmniROM version. Additionally I was wise enough to see thru the bullshit department (PR) that the feature would “soon return after maintenance” after the unlock servers had already been down for a couple months. Unsurprisingly they were never brought back online & the unlock app was revoked from the downloads page for the device.
here’s hoping the next Fairphone finally launches new in the US.
Really would love to finally use one.
They sell an official version with US antennas through Murena!
they sell the fairphone 4 not the 5. And while I’m not against e/os/, that’s kind of neat for me I think it’d be awesome if they sold the original model with android with all of Google Spyware lol
The bootloader is open so you could throw Fairphone’s Android on there no problem. I think they provide the files for that (didn’t check so don’t know for sure)
This is true. Hopefully they will soon sell the 5! I tossed lineageOS on mine, and have felt pleased with it.
Did you buy it from fairphone or are you saying you got the fairphone 4 with e/os/ from Mureno?
I bought the 4 from Mureno with e/os/ on it.
I’m curious what made you not like e/os/. I’m interested to try it if they do the fairphone 5
I didn’t have strong feelings about it, and had extensive experience with LineageOS. I just stuck with what I knew.
Wait, why don’t they launch in the U.S.?
I’m not sure, I assume due to the lock in to carrier stores in the US? Or just expenses of doing business. I can’t even order those earbuds to the US.
there is the fairphone 4 on Murena with e/os/ but they don’t even have fairphone 5 😭
The US market has three big gatekeepers named Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. They charge huge money to certify devices to work on their networks. No certification and phones won’t work properly for mission-critical stuff like VoLTE, VoWiFi, and in some cases 5G. Without these features, no-one will buy the phones.
You also need to be selling a big number of those phones to eat the cost of all that certification. And what do you know, the telcos operate the stores that sell the lion’s share of phones in the US market.
All that adds up to niche handsets only working on 1 or 2 of the telcos, or only partially, and only selling direct to consumer or on Amazon or Best Buy or wherever in negligible numbers.
And that’s why you can’t buy a Fairphone at retail in the US.
Ok i never understood this. But can i ask wtf is there a certification required for using volte or vowifi ( particulary VoLTE )?
It’s easy to forget that our pocket computers are also telephones, and thus emergency calling devices. These are regulated with good reason. The operator/their partners have to test the device on their network to ensure it is compliant and emergency calls can be made as expected; they also need to build the VoLTE/VoWiFi/IMS settings for that specific network into the handset’s software before it will work - VoLTE has many complications, it is not one size fits all. Accordingly, some operators allow BYOD, while others will only whitelist the specific hardware and software combination they have tested and signed off on.
So why exatcly 3g or 2g never had this problem. Also why is that then that i can use 4g internet but somewhow making a phone call on the same network is not allowed?
Over 2G and 3G, voice calls are circuit switched. VoLTE and VoNR are packet switched, over IP, VoIP. Totally different. VoLTE is not as standardised as it may seem from the outside whereas 2G and 3G voice calls were.
Internet access is not regulated as an emergency service.
Does the 5g have the same problems or did they improved it . Because right now that may be a collosal problem if my country ever wanted to turn off 2g ( which to be fair likely wont happen for a long time ).
The comments on this post are entirelly missing the point. Jesus christ lemmy. Yes, we know you like 3.5 mm jacks. That is not the point. The point is that FairPhone launched earphones with ANC with replaceable batteries. This is good!
Counterpoints:
- Good IEM-s don’t really need ANC. If the silicone tip doesn’t isolate enough you can use foam tips that basically function like hearing protection earplugs.
- No battery is even better than replaceable battery.
- Wired IEM-s never get obsolete. At worst you’ll need to replace the silicone tips from time to time, or the cable and today even 20€ Chinese IEM-s have replaceable cables. With good care wired IEM-s can last decades.
So you basically said there’s no need for fair wired headphones because cheap 20€ chinese wired ones perfectly serve that market?
Even better that fairphone builds true wireless earbuds with all those fair features, because there is no alternative there already.
If you don’t think you need ANC you’ve never experienced good ANC, even the best passive noise isolation won’t quiet down the sound of a full cafeteria or bus.
No wired iems will never be obsolete, but I will just be leaving them at my desk where the downsides over wireless are less.
I’ve used passive noise isolation earbuds that work better than any ANC. This one time I took them off after a long flight, only to realize that a toddler was crying behind me.
I think it would be fair to doubt your point, could you share which earbuds you were using and how you were using them? I think the disagreement here will also stem from the fact that IEMs + playing music is pretty great “active noise cancellation” in itself.
When I listen to a podcast on my IEMs I hear quite a lot of the outside world, when I do the same with ANC headphones on I hear much less.
We’re allowed to want both.
Not when they’re twice the price is decent Sonys
Well, my point is that we wouldn’t need wireless headphones if Fairphone still had a headphone jack
They going to get all my business.
“I want my two dollars!”
wireless charging is not supported
This is 2024, right? Heckling aside, I’ll look for the next release.
I never understood why people care so much for wireless charging. It’s less efficient, therefore you heat your device more which shortens the longevity of the battery, you charge slower, and if you move the device slightly, it won’t charge, therefore it’s less reliable (unless there is a magnet array like apple). Sure, it’s useful in a pinch, but is it really a make or break feature?
I never understood wireless charging either, you still can’t move your device around (well if we ignore the fact you can move it around somewhat with a cable). It requires a charging pad too, so it also takes up more space.
for earbuds it’s useful as many modern phones can share their battery to wirelessly charge another device, so you can top up your earbuds off of your phone while you’re out somewhere and not need to lug around a charger and cable.
For wirelessly charging phones, I agree the pad style chargers defeat a lot of the point, but I am a fan of the dock-style wireless chargers. I have one at my desk and can just glance at my phone to see notifications, and I have to set my phone somewhere anyways, so this lets me top up my phone without really thinking about it.
That’s the only benefit I can think of, the reverse charging on phones (which is very slow). They could add that feature to the usb port though. I mean the dock thing sounds alright I guess, but I just plug my phone in, then it’s charging on desk and in hand and it only needs to be in for like 30 mins and it’s full charged.
Is their app open source?
Their website has a page that says they “embrace open source”
I couldn’t find the source code specifically for their app. Maybe this?
https://github.com/fairphone/android_device_fairphone_FP5
Honestly have no clue what I’m looking at there. There seems to be no iOS equivalent, so who knows.
Otherwise, their app permissions seem pretty reasonable:
• discover and pair nearby Bluetooth devices
• Access Bluetooth settings
• Pair with Bluetooth devices
• connect to paired Bluetooth devicesBut yeah, if no open source, that can definitely be a deal-breaker for the market they seem to be targeting.
This seems like part of their android os for FP5, TWRP is a common open source android recovery image: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWRP_(software)
Probably a attempt to open source the component they can, in the release note, they list the components that are not working.
FairPhone’s is not really the open source crowd though?
They proclaim to value open source and it seems they’ve tried to do some stuff in the past. I think software freedom is a natural conclusion of hardware repairability but it seems their priority is instead on being green and workers up the chain getting a fair pay.
If only they shipped to the US…at least, I didn’t see that option.
First thing I looked at as well. Shame. I’ll buy them when my AirPods die if they offer shipping to the us.
> only support AAC and SBC codecs
> available for 149
Eh.
Starting to notice a trend with these “specialty” device companies, crap specs and high (relatively) prices.
The FP5, released last year has a SoC that performs worse than the Tensor. The TENSOR, a chip widely regarded as shitty, and can be had on a phone 200$ cheaper. :/
The high prices at least should be obvious, a product using fairly sourced components will always be more expensive.
fairly sourced components
Uses Qualcomm
Mmm, ok…
The workers literally get paid bonuses for each phone that gets made. The phone’s parts all get certified for sustainability. They need to find manufacturers willing to fulfill their requirements, for which they will obviously charge more.
I’m not saying that they’re for everyone or should be free from criticism. I personally decided against buying one due to the size, performance and camera. But if you’re complaining about a sustainable product costing more than a regular one, you’re missing the point and were never in the target audience in the first place.
Then don’t buy them and keep buying from less ethical sources. You’re not the target market for this. It’s fine.
Other’s make it cheaper because they don’t care about “fair”. How do you think cheap products become cheap? Think about it for a second.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
You can be “fair” and pricey, just put a better competitive SoC, rn it’s near budget tier for upper mid range money
And then they expect someone to use it for 10 years? LMAO, that thing is gonna be sluggish AF in another 1 or 2 tops, can’t imagine trying to use it in 10 lolol
You can be “fair” and pricey, just put a better competitive SoC, rn it’s near budget tier for upper mid range money
That’s the thing, fair SoC’s aren’t cheap because they aren’t available everywhere nor is a fair supply chain easy to setup. Do you think somebody just snapped their fingers or trusted the words written in a contract? "This supplier says they’re fair and ethical, so I’ll believe them 🤷 "
Who do you think has to verify suppliers claims? Do you think they are free? Do you think a manufacturer will simply throw out an unfair supplier to be ethical and fair if that meant loss of business or revenue?
Think about it from the extreme: are slaves cheaper than paid employees? Then continue the thoughts from there and the impacts they have on the cost and availability of products. Just walk through the logistics yourself and compare the cost of doing business ethically vs not. Maybe even write it down to get a better picture.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I had at least hoped for FastStream.
I mean even Sony didn’t get it working on my XM4s, I don’t know why people expect it from $150 earbuds.
Hang on, is THAT why call quality is abysmal with practically every bluetooth device?
Yes. and why it’s wildly complicated on Windows machines where you have an audio output device for headphones and for headset, and once something starts using the mic the output device itself changes.
So joining team chat in a game will either make audio sound horrible or break it entirely if you had specified the output device instead of using default device.
How in the fuck is bluetooth even a competing standard? If it’s “good enough” than so is SD video and VHS tapes.
Bluetooth turns twenty-six this year, maybe we’ll be closer to good integration once it hits it’s thirties.
There’s a lot of things that make the Bluetooth experience better… it’s just almost all focused on mobile phones, maybe apple laptops if you stay in their walled gardens, but definitely not stock windows.
I say stock because if you do use windows and want to use Bluetooth you can improve things with a third party driver https://www.bluetoothgoodies.com/a2dp/ it’s still not great but at least you can use better codecs than default
If you’re using earbuds then being a codec snob is kind of unnecessary tbh. And if you want quality, wireless, repairable electronics made in a more ethical way, they cost a premium. $150 is not unreasonable.
My most expensive earbuds were $75.
At $150, I’d rather buy multiple “lesser” ear buds and not worry about battery lifespan.
Then these aren’t for you and that’s fine. You don’t value what they offer, and you’re not obligated to buy them. Some of us do.
Sorry, what? They are obliged to buy them, if not today, they will be when their phone stops working and they have to buy a new one, because that won’t have a jack connector.
Except of course if they don’t use a smartphone.
Hard disagree that earbuds negate codec importance. I love open-back over-ears, but one of my best pairs of headphones are Moondrop IEMs, and I can hear differences in audio quality more noticeably on them than a lot of speakers. I very often plug them into a Bluetooth receiver for semi-wireless convenience, and I can absolutely hear the difference between LDAC and SBC.
However, yeah definitely agreed that $150 is fair for what’s being offered here. Limited codec support is common (if unfortunate) enough in similarly priced gear without the other benefits these bring, so I’d say it’s fair enough unless the drivers themselves are bad.
I meant to say wireless earbuds but yes you are correct
Turning your nose up at SBC isn’t being a codec snob; it’s having functioning ears.
And if you’re on Android, AAC is not well implemented compared to on iOS / MacOS. Maybe this has changed in the past couple years but it was immediately noticeable to me when I upgraded from the WH-1000XM3s to the XM4s, I could immediately tell that the audio was worse if they weren’t using LDAC. And these don’t have LDAC.
Unlike with competent compression codecs (mp3 vs AAC vs FLAC), where most people genuinely cannot tell the difference between a well-compressed song vs a lossless one, many people can immediately tell the difference between AptX and AAC or SBC on Android.
There are plenty of true wireless headphones out there that support LDAC or AptX for less than $100. It’s not surprising to me that people in their target audience would think $150 for something that sounds terrible to them isn’t reasonable.
Running sbc at higher bitrates than default sound subjectively better than most existing codecs. I use 552 kbit/s regulary and it sound great. Unfortunately the support for higher sbc bitrates is terrible.
If you’re using Bluetooth headphones it’s kind of moot anyway IME.
In-ear phones have the potential of having the highest fidelity of all headphone types. So, no, being a “codec snob” is completely justified. Though I personally won’t be using BT phones before we get lossless connection as a standard. Wired are cheaper, last longer and have less environmental impact during production and after EOL.
In-ear phones have the potential of having the highest fidelity of all headphone types.
How so? Isn’t converting from digital to analog better than from digital to digital to analog?
Anti Commercial AI thingy
Nothing to do with ADA conversions (and digital-to-digital, eg SRC or bitdepth conversion, is completely transparent if done even remotely adequately). Small drivers close to eardrum with good seal just seem to be easier to manage when it comes to frequency response and distortion. Most open circumaural headphones, for example, seem to have deficiencies in lower end no matter the price.
Small drivers close to eardrum with good seal just seem to be easier to manage when it comes to frequency response and distortion.
Are you saying the length of the cable from my phone to my ears has an impact on audio quality?
Also, is there no loss when converting from the digital audio format to whatever bluetooth uses?
Most open circumaural headphones, for example, seem to have deficiencies in lower end no matter the price.
This seems unrelated to jack vs bluetooth.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
Are you saying the length of the cable from my phone to my ears has an impact on audio quality?
Why of course that is why OP only buys the finest MONSTER Vibranium-Plated Unobtanium-Engraved Analog Audiophile Cables.
No, they’re saying accurately reproducing sounds for people to listen to has much more to do with the vibrating membrane to eardrum interaction than anything that happens between the source material and the vibrating membrane.
Theoretically, yes. Practically, bluetooth has been way funkier than cable ever has for me. It drops, loses packets, and sometimes tries to catch up on whatever shit it was doing to suddenly have the audio sound like it’s fast forwarding. My ears aren’t the best, but that’s the kind of shit I do hear. Membranes can’t protect you from that.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
It’s not just about quality (AAC is perfectly fine quality-wise), it’s IMHO more about the extreme latency, and the fact that they have to to drop down to terrible-sounding HSP/HSP when using the microphone, since A2DP is monodirectional. Sucks that they don’t support LE Audio.
Bluetooth headphones are unusable for videos and games if they only support high latency codecs.
Then don’t use them for that or don’t buy them.
Every time it comes up I must lament the switch to screens too tall to watch content, the decision to remove wired 3.5mm jacks in order to drive sales of wireless headphones, the switch to increasingly fewer physical buttons. No more IR blaster.
What do you even need the IR blaster for?
Restaurant TVs.
I use mine all the time. Lobby’s, waiting rooms, restaurants, bars… it’s really nice to have it available. Especially when it’s just me, waiting in the doctor’s office, and I don’t wanna hear or watch whatever is on. I can just mute it and enjoy the silence, or change the channel. It’s not like I’m bothering anyone else anyway, I just don’t wanna listen to a Fox News opinion piece at a loud volume, if ain’t nobody else is watching either
Instead of messing with other people’s things why wouldn’t you just put in ear buds?
Or I could probably ask someone who works there to mute it for me, and it would be a non-issue (especially if it’s just me in the waiting area)
But I’ll just skip the middle man and mute it myself. And then unmute it when I leave or someone else walks in. It quite literally harms nobody and nobody has ever cared. If they did, I’m sure they would tell me and I would remember to bring earbuds/earplugs next time.
I think it’s more convenient for everyone, both me and the employee. I don’t have to bother them with something trivial, I’m not bothering anyone else. Quite literally a non-issue if you’re not being a malicious little asshat
the lobby tvs are so annoying. if i’m alone for a while, i turn one off for a quiet section of the room
bro you are equating muting a TV put there specifically to either advertise to you, or entertain you, to opening someone’s dinnerware cupboards. That’s just silly.
It takes the staff 3 seconds to undo what you did and no one gives a shit.
You’ve never lost your remote???
Nope.
I think you’re just finding reasons to nitpick. I agree with the jack but the fuck you need and IR blaster for?
cause it’s cool and I like it, which should be reason enough. more practically it works for cases when you lose your remote, maybe cases where you want to change the channel on some TV in a pub somewhere, shit like that. it’s fun.
IR blasters were great!
“Shit, where’s the remote? Oh well, I’ll just use my phone.”
If you lose a remote you also love a phone easily
It is much easier to lose the remote since you only use it when using the TV (or other devices that have remotes). Where as you are much much more likely to be doing stuff on your phone actively. Also you can use various methods for locating your phone. Most remotes on the other hand don’t come with the same features for finding them. I am only personally aware of Roku’s remotes having the option to press a physical button on the main box, or via the Roku phone app (which can also be used as a remote).
I loved having the IR blaster on my Galaxy S6, and thought it was lame that it wasn’t around when I upgraded to my S8+. Though I will say that the pre-installed third-party app got on the enshittification train at some point. As I started getting random ads on my lock screen and found that this app cause. So that would be one thing that kind of made losing the IR blaster suck less. Still it sucks to lose features that were able to exist on my smaller phones now that I started getting the + and Ultra size models. Most certainly could fit the aux port at minimum.
Good thing there’s find my phone
I’ve been looking for buds with replaceable batteries ever since my first pair degraded. Good to see FairPhone offering one that does it this time!
Let’s not forget this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdL0StldJM
Wired headphones do not have the need for replaceable batteries.
I live in a low humidity climate, there is no pain quite as obnoxious as wired headphones static shocking you right across your brain.
Idk what exactly causes this, but I definitely have headphones that never do that. I reckon it’s only on my pricier pairs, so maybe it’s a cable insulation thing?
It depends on the proximity of metal to skin mostly. If you use giant cans with huge ear pads, you’re fine. If you use in-ear reference headphones, the metal mesh over the speaker is close enough to the earhole to jump the gap. It also depends if the headphones are plugged into a device on your person versus say, a desktop DAC. And if you use a chair with wheels that roll across plastic, etc. etc. A lot of variables. I still enjoy using wired for audio quality, I just have to make sure I don’t plan on moving and/or discharging my bodily static periodically on a grounded surface.
ESD is such an hilarious annoying thing, I once touched a cell phone and the entire display oozed to black starting from the point I touched and then oozed back to picture. Another time, I ESD’d a wall thermostat so hard that it reset back to factory defaults. I may actually be a Van De Graaff generator.
Edit: Just remembered a third, touched a light switch screw one day and static snapped me with enough juice that 200 nearby LED lights blinked on for a split second, and then back off.
Would wearing one of those grounded ESD leashes prevent this? It’s kinda silly, but if it works I’ll absolutely put one of those lil fuckers at my desk.
Funny you mention, I just recently got some ESD shoe harnesses to try out and see if they’ll drain it enough to reduce the shock. May have to go full ESD lab with grounded work pads and everything at some point hahaha.
People keep whining about this but honestly people who listen to music with wired headphonea are a small fraction of a 1%. And they probably have this data from their telemetry.
Don’t wanna be a whiner but wireless in ears never last long enough for me. I’m forced to stop using them after a while because they need to be charged. Even a 2 and a half phone call is enough to deplete them. This is a non existing problem with wired ones
They are now a small fraction cause this trend is already 8 years old.
Why the fuck use wireless phones? Just use a classic wall phone you fucking dummies! Why use SSDs? Just use good ole floppies!
Fuck sakes man, pull your head out of your ass. It’s called modernity and it’s okay
I like wired headphones it has nothing to do with modernity but the functionality I prefer. I dislike dealing with battery life. Same reason I have a wired keyboard. Also I’ve been in power outages that lasted long enough I wished I had a wall phone to do things like let my family know I hadn’t frozen to death or to call into work to update them so I was less likely to be fired. Me wanting a company to sell wired devices doesn’t affect your ability to buy wireless devices this isn’t a zero sum game, no need to be hostile.
Fair enough. Im just tired of all the backwards rhetoric on Lemmy, wasn’t fair to direct at you. I swear this place is stuck in a time warp sometime in the 90s or early 2000s. It’s frustrating.
Removed by mod
Bluetooth headphones are not modernity, they should of course be an option, but increasingly they are the only game in town. Wired is still king for loads of things, not the least of which is reliability.
You wanna know how many times my wired Sennheiser’s have been unable to put music in my ear holes? Never. They always work. Care to guess how many wireless headphones have been able to provide sound every time I’ve wanted it without delay or failure? None. I’ve owned more than 2 dozen wireless this, that, and the other, headphones & earbuds, and none of them have been even a shadow of the reliability offered by my old wired headphones. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the wired experience usually sounds better (Still don’t think you can get any comfortable phat 600ohm monster cans that don’t have a wire) and has no issues with making sound when you’re in a space that is saturating the 2.4Ghz band (my Costco is usually so full of idiots on Bluetooth that you can’t get a reliable experience for anything from any wireless audio device.)
You seem to think it’s “backwards rhetoric” to want a feature that will never be offered in a wireless setup, and that’s just fucked man. There are a wealth of reasons why wireless does not fully replace wired. It’s why anything that doesn’t have to move generally gets a fixed connection, it’s just more reliable and often more efficient. That’s not backwards, it’s just a priority that you don’t value above others. If landlines or floppy disks offered any advantages over anything else they’d still be around today (and arguably they are in some limited niches,) but the replacements for those technologies have had no downsides against their replacements while wireless tech still has some significant downsides (again, maybe you don’t weight the pros and cons the same, so this may not apply to you) against the technology they are meant to replace, and will likely never see 100% capture of their role as a result.
TL;DR: Stop trying to frame this as some sort of crusade against the future, there are legit cases where wired is just better than wireless.
I hope you enjoyed typing all that out because I’m not reading it
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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I have yet to use a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle for my phone that hasn’t gone bust in my pocket in a few months. Probably time to see about a cable for the earphones that terminates in USB-C on the phone end, but that was difficult to search for.
I love my wired ones, and have been nursing some BT earbuds for years, but it’s hard to use wired and not to move to BT anymore without buying a phone specifically for the 3.5mm jack.
I’m the same, those dongles don’t last, and are annoying to use. I picked up one of these cables from aliexpress to use with my iems and it works a treat. There’s better quality cables out there, but for 10 bucks these are solid.
Removed by mod
For the moment I’m on a budget so DACs are not in my budget. They seem fun though, and I do love my hi-fi so, who knows, may be worth?
The latter image, I used dongles like that. They broke within months and I had tried multiple brands, I soured on them a few brands deep.
Removed by mod
I did for a long time settle for adjusting the phone in the pocket, even putting things in there to change the position of the phone, but no, it never helped much. I’ll look in to getting it or something like it, thanks so much!
It was sad, yes, but I found that the dongle I already used for my laptop worked a charm with my phone. Sometimes plug in a keyboard and SD cards. Somehow handles it. I only really used an SD card for cameras and portable recording devices.
I think my needs in audio are mostly driven by my career. If I was not a music-person I would not need wired earphones. The driving factor of my having them is that I could pull them out of my phone and work on my laptop very quickly. BT headphones just had too much latency and not the best soundstage or frequency response…
Get a portable dac amp so you can connect your wired headphone over usb-c and upgrading its sound quality at the same time.
Hyperbole aside, I’d still be worried that any cable physically connected to my phone would break the port over time - mostly because that has happened to me in the past with multiple devices.
I guess there is no way to escape the extra stress to the port. Maybe using this kind of detachable magnetic adapter can help with reducing the strain? They don’t conform with usb specification though, so while it may reduce strain to your port, it may carry another risk like making it easier to accidentally shorting some exposed pins.
Nice, I did not know such a connector existed - that will be useful for completely different and unrelated use cases.
While I had toyed with the idea of a portable, Japanese - made DAC for a while, I switched to Bluetooth headphones years ago. Started out with a cheap Philips headset for $50, later on got the Bose QC 35 II (still my daily driver when outside) and finally worked my way up to the Sony WH-1000XM5.
I did not realize how nice active noise cancelation is. Plus, the frequency reproduction of the XM5 with LDAC enabled is absolutely fine.
On the cons side, you’re walking around with $300 - $400 on your head, which is an absolutely luxury, plus you’ll get headphones that perform equally well in the sound department (minus the excellent ANC and freedom from cables) for a lot less.
But also see:
And get caught on everything.
I can’t be bothered with the inconvenience of wires. Bluetooth quality is good enough for what I need it for, and the convenience of simply putting them on gives me sound is hard to beat.
I have a pair of noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones (not buds) from 2008 that still work. Battery life isn’t what it was, but whatever - they work fine for how I use them (as one pair of several). I could replace the battery if I felt like it, just not worth the effort.
But I get that some people prefer the wired for their use-case.
No ones disputing that wireless isn’t useful. But its not harming anyone to have a device both have a jack and bluetooth, the way it was for nearly 2 decades without any complaint.
Just because it was a way before doesn’t mean it’s good now.
I love my wired cans but your argument is a bad one.
More options is always better.
There was no reason to remove them back then and there is no reason to remove them now.
The simple point is, no one forces you to use wires. Bluetooth has been a thing for decades.
But basically every (yes some exceptions) company that makes phones forced you to use wireless ones.
And in the case of Fairphone it is just simply hypocritical.
All my phones always had headphone jacks, even though I prefer wireless and put those rubber nub dust protectors in them, so they don’t get filthy. Nobody forced me to do anything. I had multiple brands. Wiko, Samsung, Honor, etc…
And in the case of Fairphone it is just simply hypocritical.
I agree. I get that they’re a business and all but I haven’t seen a legitimate explanation for them removing headphone jacks and, like every other manufacturer, simultaneously introducing expensive Bluetooth ones.
The only reason the headphone jack was ever removed is to sell you wireless earbuds.
YUP! I’m sorry, Apple earned more money than Spotify purely based on their airpod market. I refuse to believe otherwise.
If they truly cared about repairability/maintainability they’d give me a headphone jack phone with a replaceable module in case it wears down.
I freaking hate dongles, I always have one when I don’t need one and can never find one when I don’t. They randomly don’t work or I don’t know if this AliExpress one I bought is actually stealing my data. Just give a built-in jack, please!
I velcro’d dongles to some wired pairs of headphones, but haven’t been using them.
AirPods have been great for stockholders and bad for our planet’s inhabitants. But I cannot deny the flexibility, seamlessness (even across devices), speed to don & doff, and convenience are powerful factors.
or a adapter at greater than 20x cost
They also sell headphone to USB cable. I’m not saying the lack of a headphone jack is good but if their goal was really to sell wireless earbuds then selling a USB to headphone cable was a bad move, no?
Yes… they sell an adapter.
A master plan to make more money selling a cable than a port on an already bulky phone?
As Louis Rossmann also said, using a single port for both charging/moving data and listening music increases the wear on the port. They’re just made to wear down faster with the absence of the audio jack port.
Plus it’s impractical, as it occupies the type c port.
What’s the lifetime of those ports you think?
People will deny this but this is the only real reason for doing that. The other reason is copying apple, which isn’t really another reason as apple removed it for the first reason. Fairphone just went the extra mile to claim that headphones are wasteful, in essence they’re making an excuse to cover up their reason why and also trying to force others to do it as well.
You can get 3.5mm to (whatever usb port) that will as far as I know work in every phone. Just because it doesn’t have a dedicated port doesn’t mean you can’t wire in your headphones.
I much prefer it this way, if you want to wire you can, if you don’t you don’t have to have an extra useless port on your device.
Or the port could exist and you just don’t use it, then we don’t need adapters!
It’s not just a hole, you need to reserve the space to house the inserted jack, you need to source or build the housing and build something to convert the signal to digital. That costs money and space for a feature hardly anyone uses. These resources are simply better used elsewhere.
It’s a very small amount of space. When it was first removed the space was still there just empty. There’s phones that do exist that have SD card slots and headphone jacks. The hardware required is very very cheap, especially at scale, so cost is a non-factor. For such minimal resources, who wouldn’t want the option of more features? There’s plenty of features of smartphones that most people don’t use, it doesn’t mean we should remove them to the detriment of the people who do.
You can get 3.5mm to (whatever usb port) that will as far as I know work in every phone. Just because it doesn’t have a dedicated port doesn’t mean you can’t wire in your headphones.
not if you want to charge it as well.
Lol, bring on your down votes. I bet if you surveyed a hundred random people on the street if they really want a headphone port on your phone and are committed to using it you’d get less than ten people, definitely less than 20. It’s not realistic to support every legacy hardware function on a modern device because a few tech enthusiasts want it, especially when there’s a very easy way to support it.
If you’re the only option with a headphone jack that’s a guaranteed 10% of the market buying your device. More if you also include other things tech enthusiasts want that are no longer widely available.
Yes you can: https://a.co/d/dvX8HjP
That’s the beauty of usb, it’s capable of expanding to suit your needs
Simply put, if companies determined the market need for 3.5mm port was valuable enough they’d leave it on there. They want to sell product and 3.5mm is not a feature enough customers care about to justify it’s existence. If you really want it, you have USB options or some phone models that support it: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Best-phones-with-a-headphone-jack-Google-Pixel-Samsung-Galaxy-LG-and-more_id124459
Simply put, if companies determined the market need for 3.5mm port was valuable enough they’d leave it on there.
The reason it’s not “valuable” is that they want to force people to buy expensive earbuds every year when they crap out. This is demonstrated by the fact that none of these phones that have removed it have added anything new in it’s place and they’ve only gotten more expensive. Practically every phone on the market is just a copycat phone, camera, social media browsing device. Maybe a few have a stylus. The only thing that differentiates them is specs. My 6 year old phone has more features than anything available today and I dread finally reaching the point where my work apps stop functioning due to it’s age and I have to downgrade to some garbage that can’t do half the things I used to.
If you buy crappy headphones they might crap out every year. I’ve got the same pair of Jabra 65t that I bought in 2018 and they work amazing 6 years later. If Apple or Samsung or Google forced you to use their buds I’d agree with your position of being forced but they don’t and saying all buds die in a year is absurd.
You’re supposing every tech/audio enthusiast here wants the same shitty setup as the masses? The fact is there is basically one brand still offering headphone jacks in a flagship that you can unlock … where the point of Android was all the delicious innovations of each OEM. But they saw how profitable selling branded earbuds could be so now you have next to 0 options.
Strange how I’ve been using wired headphones with my phones until two years ago, even though I haven’t had a phone with a headphone jack since 2017…
Lol, I already have to deal with insulin pump hose, I’m sure as hell not dealing with a wired headphone cable too.
Fair, that’s your choice, and please don’t be aggressive about it, because it gets very annoying very quickly. Tried not to type out this second part, but couldn’t.
But our preference is not a choice. Because phone manufacturers have decided for ourselves.
I think you’re interpreting my frustration with having to deal with an insulin pump hose, as frustration with the person suggesting using wired headphones. Imagine headphone wires you can’t take off. On you 24/7 except for showering, and they get caught on every. Freaking. Thing. Frustrating. I’m not also going to deal with wired headphones on top of that annoyance.
I didn’t reply to the insulin pump part, sorry. It was toward the other part, which implied to me that there are people who don’t want to deal with cables, so no one should be about to use them.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
But our point is that having a little extra hole in your phone isn’t going to matter to you.
I wouldn’t trade my wireless stuff for wired ones at this point. Wireless earbuds have gotten so good that dealing with a wire would be a downgrade in most cases. When I work with mixing I always use my monitors with a wire, for obvious reasons.
Also as an aside; any company that claims to do anything “green” is profiteering off of greenwashing. Of course making stuff environmentally friendly would become trendy in the cringe corpo world. I think the most egregious example is Apple’s autumn 2023 iPhone event. Just thinking back on it is making me cringe.
The “greenest” product is the one that is never made to begin with.
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A follow-up video “Why I was wrong about fairphone” by Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAogtqyN22M
Still critical of lack of audio jack but praises FairPhone for including list of all components and board view of where each part is located and a complete schematic. In comparison to other phones manufacturers that’s night and day of repair-ability.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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You just need replaceable wires that are bound to get replaced more often and more expensive instead
Yep. I refuse to buy a FairPhone for this simple reason: I hate bluetooth. It means I have to buy a new expensive device to get audio quality that’s worse than before and requires batteries again. Fuck that.
I also find it ridiculous that they call themselves “fair” but making bluetooth buds probably increases pain and suffering, because more materials have to be used to make them than a simple jack headphone.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
if you hate bluetooth. USB C dongle earbuds are quite impressive nowadays like JBL or anker. no pairing
That’ll have to be the middle ground should I ever be forced to buy a phone without an audio jack.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
I don’t know about the fairness of this particular company but by that rationale nothing can ever be fair, just by existing we increase the suffering. Its how the world is.
Think headphones jacks don’t cause suffering at some point in the chain?
Not that I’m disagreeing, just not sure how things would get named under this specific scheme.
Does it assume that it’s generally understood that everything is a little harmful in some way, so as long as you don’t claim otherwise, it’s cool or would everything need to be measured on some sort of average harmfulness scale and then include the rating in the title.
Like “Horrendously harmful Apple” or “Mildly harmful Colgate”
A bit hyperbolous perhaps.
Genuinely not trying to start a fight, actually interested in what you think would be a good way of doing this, as I’ve occasionally pondered it myself and never come up with a good answer.
Incidentally, this is one of the core plotlines to later seasons of “The good place”
Incidentally, this is one of the core plotlines to later seasons of “The good place”
Aaaay! Was going to say that too 👍
My only point is that we can work to minimize suffering. Making it necessary to purchase a new accessory adds more suffering than using an old accessory.
Anti Commercial AI thingy
That’s reasonable
Buds can be used without an app, but they really should open source it if they really care about long term sustainability.
They should also have a wired option. But I guess that they removed the headphone jack from their latest phone for a reason.
Imo its fine if they open source it when they decide to end support. The fact that app has a pristine privacy record is good enough
Is it? Closed source means it’s probably listening and recording and selling
You can just see which DNS calls it’s doing with any DNS overwriter.
I mean if you’re using something like Firebase on Android, the network calls get bundled with Google Play Services and you have no idea what that’s sending up
Nah it’s encrypted
You don’t know what DNS is, do you?
Basically your device (for example your phone) needs to know the ip adress of any service it wants to connect to. As you may know these services usually use addresses like Lemmy.org or google.com or whatever.
To know what IP adres is behind these addresses, you device needs to ask a dns server, in a local network (like your own WiFi) this is usually your router, but you can set it to any arbitrary device you want. This way you can see what addresses are being asked for by your device.
So if the app want to send data to some server, it usually needs to resolve the adress first. And you can see that.
Data 'n stealing
I’m a fan of open source, but c’mon. There are reasons not yet to open source a product.
