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Seeking (non-technical) input on what I should do with my possibly faulty Google Pixel Buds Pro.
I bought the Pixel Buds Pro three weeks ago on sale for $150 (MSRP $200). It's been mostly satisfactory, except about a week ago, without any obvious cause (i.e. software update, drop damage, water damage), when I took them out of the case and into my ear to take a call, the right earbud suddenly developed continuous noisy crackling. I believe the left bud may have been affected to a much smaller extent. Cycling through the active noise cancellation on/off didn't do anything. The problem seemed to be with the buds and not a phone app, as Spotify and podcasts all had the same crackling issue.
I put the buds back into the case, closed it, and took them out. The problem immediately went away. Great. I thought it was worrisome that such new devices had issues, but hoped that it'd be a one-time thing.
Unfortunately, this morning the same thing happened again. When I took them out of the case ahead of a workout, the crackling returned, mostly in the right earbud. I cycled through active noise cancellation, disconnected and reconnected bluetooth on my phone, and even put it back in the case and closed it. Nothing did the trick. Neither did "forgetting" the device--the unconnected buds crackled while untethered to anything. I checked firmware and it was up to date.
It was only when I hard reset the buds in their case (press and hold bluetooth button for 30s etc.) and repaired that the problem went away.
So my question to The Motte is, what would you do now? Google allows free returns for refunds for up to 30 days, so I have less than a week to do so. Google also has a one-year warranty. I'd rather not bother with finding a box to package the buds, print a label, drop it off at Fedex/UPS, reorder a new pair etc. But I fear that not doing anything now out of laziness will mean the problem returns a week from now, or maybe a month, with me eventually stuck with a lemon outside of the return/warranty period.
Google (the search engine) does not return super obvious answers--i.e., this does not appear to be a super common software problem that will be fixed by a firmware update in a week, or a super common hardware problem that requires a return.
I realize this is a trivial question, but we make trivial decisions every day that have substantive consequences, so I'm hoping to improve my decision making. So what would you do personally if you're in my situation?
What I would do myself: I'd go "yeah I knew it, wireless earbuds are a stupid product" and go back to wired forever. I personally think that wired earbuds are just a flat out superior product and many times cheaper to boot.
I don't suspect that's on the table for you, though (else you probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place). So given that you probably want to stay wireless, I would stay the course for now. Maybe return them to Google if you feel you would rather get another brand considering the issues, but otherwise keep them and see what happens. If they do indeed start acting up again, don't try to fix them or troubleshoot, send them in for warranty repair/replacement. You aren't responsible for trying to fix their broken product, that's what a warranty is for.
I'm as far of the opposite opinion as possible, wires are incredibly frustrating for anything but sitting still. Connecton and battery problems every day are preferable to occasionally ripping your ear buds out when the wire gets caught on something.
I can't say I've ever had that problem, though I'm almost never actually moving around while listening to music or whatever on my phone. Earbuds are for sitting in the car or on a plane or what have you, not for going on walks (not that I really do much of that either, lol).
Right, I'm frequently in a gym with many awkward shaped bits of iron everywhere for wires to catch on or on runs or commuting. Wireless is king when moving. And really it's freeing around the house as well, I have over the ears and buds tethered to my basement desktop and nice Bluetooth radio and can go anywhere in my home while still able to listen. Most of my engagement on themotte is text to speech fed through a wireless headset while doing chores.
Yeah, most of those are simply use cases where I don't actually want to listen to my phone. Barring commuting, where I can easily plug my phone into my car. So no real advantage to wireless earbuds in that scenario. Your last point is especially curious to me, because that sounds like a downright hellish way to interact with anything. I think we are simply wired very, very differently as far as our desired use cases go.
It works out better than you'd think, especially since on the new site there is much less garbage that gets copied when you highlight multiple posts. You can more or less highlight a thread, throw it into ttsreader.com and go wash the dishes or vacuum the house while listening to discussions. I mentally flag points I'd like to come back and comment on. My nemesis are naked links.
It's not much different to a podcast.
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