My Love-hate relationship with Jaybird

This isn't particularly a post about development but I have found earbuds to be helpful as I zone out and focus on what I'm doing.

I acquired my first Jaybirds in 2016. They were Jaybird X2, there were my first wireless bluetooth earbuds. They were awesome products. The battery life was as advertised (8 hours) They were extremely reliable earbuds. 5 years down the road, the wire connecting the individual ear buds had started showing signs of wear and tear. I knew it was time to retire them. Meanwhile, after all this time, they would still provide 8 hours.

Fast forward to 2021, I decided to purchase the Jaybird X4. I figured that they would provide the same value for money as the Jaybird X2s had. Plus they were more features to look forward to. These are some of the advertised features;

  1. Ability to connect to two devices at the same time

  2. Companion app to be able to customise sound quality

I was disappointed when the battery wasn't good. At best I would only get 3 hours out of them. At times after charging them fully, they would disconnect after connecting and then an audible alert about "battery being low" would be heard. So, it got a bit frustrating but I wasn't willing to give up yet so I started investigating.

My conclusion is that they have a software issue because when they claim that the battery is slow, it later displays the actual battery level. This wouldn't be an issue if this was the consistent behaviour. But at times, they just keep disconnecting even after being fully charged.

Later, I saw a review online about this issue. In hindsight, I should have looked up a review online prior to purchasing them but I was sidelined by the performance of the Jaybird X2s.

Of course, I suppose that Jaybird could push out a software update to solve this issue but I doubt that this a priority.

For now, I am saying goodbye to Jaybird and have my eyes on AirPods Pro.

Moral of the story is: take sometime to look up reviews on a product even when previous generations have been good.