Amazon Echo Buds
You don’t have to be an Alexa user to enjoy the Echo Buds.
With Amazon’s push to add Alexa to just about every tech product, a pair of Alexa-powered true wireless headphones was inevitable. The Amazon Echo Buds are the company’s first attempt at making a true wireless headphone with Alexa in-tow and although they’re not perfect, they have a lot going for them.
While you’d expect Alexa to be the standout feature, it’s actually Bose’s active noise reduction (ANR) technology that makes the Echo Buds special. For commuters who want more than just passive noise isolation to drown out the outside world, the Echo Buds’s ANR offers a welcome respite, and can’t usually be found at the price range.
Overall, the Echo Bud’s ANR, features and reliability, make them a great first pair of headphones for newcomers to the true wireless space, but the headphone’s average battery life, illogical touch controls and mediocre sound hold them back from winning any best-inclass award.
Having touch controls are great but, for whatever reason, the default commands are completely illogical. The headphones only recognise double taps and long presses, which means you won’t be able to control everything you want. You’ll have to choose between controlling music playback, activating your phone’s assistant, toggling ANR, and toggling pass-through. Every other single-button true wireless headphone allows for single, double, triple, and long presses to control more features.
Since the Echo Buds are an Amazon product, Alexa integration is unsurprisingly great.
Let’s talk about the Echo Bud’s headlining feature: Active Noise Reduction (ANR). Different from active noise cancellation (ANC), ANR isn’t as effective as creating a sense of silence but it does a great job of reducing the noise from the outside world (in fact, we found the Echo Bud’s ANR more effective than some other true wireless headphones that feature ANC).
In terms of sound quality, the Amazon Echo Buds leave a lot to be desired. Bass is heavy-handed and muddy. Mids aren’t affected too much by the excessive bass but there’s a lack of resolution across the frequency range.
In terms of battery life, we found Amazon’s claims of five hours of playback on a charge just about right, observing four and a half hours per charge playing music at 50% volume. The case also provides an additional three charges for a combined total of around 20 hours of playback.
The Echo Buds are Amazon’s first pair of true wireless headphones and they get a lot right out of the gate: The headphones are affordable, reliable, and provide excellent noise reduction.
However, sound quality and battery life leave a lot to be desired when compared to the competition.
Lewis Leong
Since the Echo Buds are an Amazon product, Alexa integration is unsurprisingly great.