Amazon Echo Buds
Amazon Echo Buds
- Amazon hosted its annual fall event at its headquarters in Seattle on September 25. As goes the tradition, the tech giant had a lot to say at its fall event. To give you some idea, Amazon announced over a dozen Alexa skills and features and launched a total of 15 new devices at the event. At The Sphere, which many of you know is Amazon's dome shaped headquarters in Seattle, the company announced the Amazon Echo Buds, proving a number of reports rights.
- The Amazon Echo Buds have been in news for quite sometime now. We heard the earliest report of Amazon working on what are now being called the Echo Buds in December last year. At the time, noted Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo said that both Amazon and Google might launch earbuds powered by their respective virtual assistants, the Google Assistant and Alexa. We heard whispers about the Alexa-enabled earbuds again earlier this year. The report at the time suggested that users will be able to answer calls, order goods and listen to voice updates using Amazon's Alexa enabled earbuds.
- Now Echo Earbuds have debuted with not only those qualities but much more. Something that wasn't expected out of them. But then that is the case with most Amazon products. They hit you like a bolt from blue and when they do, you cannot help and marvel at the simplicity of the design, ingenuity of the idea, quality and of course the afforadability of the product.
- To give you a fair idea of the features that the newly launched Amazon Echo Buds come with: The Amazon Echo Buds are powered by Alexa and each earbud has two premium, balanced armature drivers, which the company says helps it to crisp, clear vocals and dynamic bass. It comes with Bose active noise cancellation technology that allows users to block all noise. Users can switch between the ANC and Passthrough modes to hear what is around them without removing the earbuds. Echo Buds use the Alexa app to stream Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and Sirius XM and the best part about them is that they are also compatible with the Google Assistant and Siri.
Price and release date
- The Amazon Echo Buds are already up for pre-order in the States with deliveries beginning on 30th October. The timescale is expected to be similar in the UK although the pre-order page isn’t live at the time of writing.
- At £120/$130, the Buds are an eye-catching saving on the cost of the second generation Apple AirPods. In fact, with the superb Sony WF-1000XM3 true wireless headphones more expensive too, it’s most likely that the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 is where Amazon will most likely find the strongest competition, especially when it comes to pure sound quality.
Design and features
- Like most true wireless headphones, the Amazon Echo Buds come with a case which not only acts as a home to store them in but also to charge them with too. The promise is 5 hours of listening from a full charge with the case providing an additional three full charges, taking the total to 20 hours.
- That’s not a huge amount compared to others on the market but it should keep you powered up for the odd casual trip. A 15 min quick charge can get you 2 hours of playback when time is short.
- It’s an all-black affair for both the headphones and the carry case. Together, they measure a compact 57 x 77 x 29mm with each bud only 7.5g and 22 x 23 x 24mm in size. There are three sizes of eartips to choose from to help perfect that noise-isolating fit. They’re also IPX4 sweat and water-resistant, which should help them stay in full working order during sweaty (or rainy) park runs.
Sound
- In some ways, a people-packed and noisy demo area at the Amazon launch event was the right kind of setting for trying out the Echo Buds. But our colleagues at Techradar only had a matter of minutes with them in their ears to report their findings.
- On a first listen, the noise-cancelling seems impressive — if not quite at the levels of the Sony WF-1000XM3 — but they respond to the Alexa wake-word every time, even in a chaotic environment like the press launch. With ANC activated, news headlines appear to come through loud and clear when requested and not having to fumble around to find a button each time is welcome.
- The audio itself seems well balanced enough. Listening to Get Lucky by Daft Punk, there's appears to be decent bass weight and a decent sense of openness.
- We’re looking forward to getting them in for a full review so we can bring you the definitive verdict on their dynamics, sense of timing and much more.
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