The best choice for sub wireless earphones. Sony "LinkBuds"

The idea is that it is only for when you want to hear the surrounding sounds without leaving it on.

Sony has announced a new type of wireless earbuds, the LinkBuds. You may think that you already have wireless earbuds, but the shape is completely different. According to Gizmodo's Andrew Liszewski, who used the headphones for a while prior to their US release, they aren't positioned to directly compete with existing wireless earbuds. Below is Liszewski.

Sony has a history of experimenting with weird products in a good way. Some are slick experiments and some are really useful, clever and innovative products. The newly launched Sony LinkBuds are definitely the latter. It won't completely replace your previous earphones, but if you actually get one, you may end up using this one the most.

Five years after Apple's AirPods transformed wireless earbuds into a (moderately) affordable mainstream product, replacements won't happen unless manufacturers come up with something new. But for the most part, those "new things" were small updates like better sound quality, longer battery life, better noise cancellation, and so on. But LinkBuds doesn't make any of those minor improvements.

Sony thought about when and how users are using wireless earbuds, at work, on the subway, on the street... As a result, we've created a new design that makes it easier to make calls, listen to music and podcasts, while making your surroundings much easier to hear. It might sound like a niche product, but it works so well that I'm surprised I'm using it more than I thought.

Sony Link Buds

What is this? : Open style wireless earbuds that make it easy to hear surrounding sounds while wearing

Price: $ 180 (about 21,000 yen)

What I like: Surprisingly high sound quality, lightweight and comfortable, and the "wide area tap" function is great.

What I Don't Like: It's a bit pricey and I wish it had a little more battery life if I could wear it all day.

A New Approach to Hearing Your Surroundings

Until now, there have been two approaches to making it easier to hear your surroundings while wearing earphones. One is the external sound capture mode, which is like a hearing aid that picks up the surrounding sounds with the built-in microphone of the earphone and listens to that sound. The other is bone conduction earphones, which transmit sound through bones through vibrations, so there is nothing to block your ears and external sounds can come in as they are.

What Sony has achieved with LinkBuds is a third solution. Instead of a speaker driver that sticks in your ear, we created a ring-shaped driver with a diameter of 12mm.

Most earphones are designed to block out external sounds, but LinkBuds are designed to allow sound in. So I can talk to people, hear the bike bell behind me, and listen to music or podcasts all the while without having to remove my earbuds. However, this assumes that the sound to be played is not too loud. The LinkBuds have a hole in them, but they emit sound at the entrance of the ear canal, so if you turn up the volume, you can't hear the surrounding sounds.

Small Earbuds, Loud Sound

Aside from the holes, the LinkBuds are also noticeably smaller. It's definitely the smallest and lightest I've tried so far.

Which wireless earbuds are easy to wear? When asked, I often recommend Apple's 3rd generation AirPods. Because it doesn't go too deep into the ear canal and stays firmly in the outer hollow. However, AirPods can be difficult for some people to stabilize in their ears, so if those people are looking for wireless earbuds with a focus on comfort, the LinkBuds are a good candidate.

What secures the LinkBuds to your ear is a silicone ring that attaches to the dome, as shown in the image above. The ring has elastic protrusions that fit into the hollow of the ear for a firm hold. This ring comes in 5 sizes, so you can choose the right size that will hold but won't hurt even if you wear it for a long time.

With a custom-sized silicone ring, LinkBuds are light, stable, and comfortable to fit, even when you're jumping around while exercising. It is very important as a wireless earphone to wear all day. The domed part holds 5.5 hours of battery on a single charge. The battery life is 17.5 hours including the charging case.

However, 5.5 hours is less than the 3rd generation AirPods. The LinkBuds can be charged quickly for 90 minutes if you put them in the case for 10 minutes, but I think it would have been better if the battery was a little bigger and heavier.

LinkBuds are not meant to replace traditional wireless earbuds, but for specific uses, such as secondary earbuds for office use where people are always talking to you. In terms of sound quality, it doesn't quite match the sound of the earphones I use to listen to music, but I'm still pleasantly surprised by how good it sounds.

The LinkBuds sound crisp and clear with no distortion, even at loud volume levels. The treble and bass are well balanced with the default settings. The sound profile can be customized with presets or manual EQ using the Sony Headphones app. I think they have an edge over the AirPods in this regard, but what the LinkBuds lack entirely is that bass thump. The bass is there and you can hear it, but you can't feel it. I think that's probably the biggest sacrifice LinkBuds has made.

New form of tapping

Like other Sony earbuds, the LinkBuds have a feature that helps you wear them all day long. For example, "Speak to Chat". This automatically pauses music playback when the user starts speaking and resumes playback after a certain amount of time has passed. It works really well and I would love to use it with all my other earbuds.

Another feature that I personally like is called "Wide Area Tap". There is a risk that touch-enabled earphones may fall out of your ears if you touch them. I've tried this kind of tap function with various earphones so far, but I didn't use it personally, and it was mostly a smartwatch that I used as a remote control.

But that changed with the LinkBuds wide area tap. Instead of tapping directly on the LinkBuds itself, tap somewhere around your ear and the LinkBuds will detect it. Shortcuts can be set in the Sony Headphones app, but a double-tap in front of the left ear increases the volume, a triple-tap decreases the volume, and a tap around the right ear controls playback. Accuracy of tap detection is high whether in front of, above, or below the ear, and it can be detected even with a tap. Anyway, it is a function that can be used properly, and this function may be more attractive than the design of the main unit.

Whether to buy more rather than replace

So, it's about time to write whether you should replace with LinkBuds or not. But when it comes to LinkBuds, Sony itself doesn't sell to replace demand.

Like Shokz's bone conduction wireless earphones, it is positioned to be used with AirPods and other earphones. The sound is surprisingly good, but not as good as other earbuds, and there is no active noise canceling. What LinkBuds can do is make it easier for people who are tired of having to take off their earbuds every time someone talks to them, or they can use ambient sounds instead of artificial sounds like the usual Ambient Sound mode. is to be able to hear

LinkBuds does exactly what it says it does, and I wish other products would have features like the wide area tap. However, the biggest catch is the estimated retail price of around 23,000 yen. If this is in the low 10,000 yen range, it will be easier to recommend as a secondary wireless earphone. That said, I'm currently working from home, but if I were to work in an office, I'd be using the LinkBuds more than my favorite pair of earbuds. So maybe Sony should show that LinkBuds are the main ones for those people, and the existing earphones are the secondary ones.