PineBuds Pro - Open Firmware Capable ANC Wireless Earbuds

With more and more phones dropping the headphone socket and more and more cameras enforcing driving and talking on the phone as illegal its becoming necessary to really look at the landscape of Bluetooth (BT) headsets and ear buds. Personally I like Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) buds because they 

As you may know I've got a few sets of BT buds (Bose Generation 1 and SkullCandy INDY ANC buds). Recently I read of the PineBuds Pro and was impressed with their specifications and also intrigued by the fact that they were programmable too.

Their site boasts of the following (more as I've selected only those of interest:

• User can flash in PINE64 community open firmware when becomes available. The community firmware may beyond typical TWS earbuds functionality.
• A custom design 6mm small size transducer packs high output and strong bass performance despite its compact size and can outperform typical 10mm transducers. (LOL and the other one plays jingle bells)
• Dual mic voice beam foaming, echo cancellation, and environment noise cancellation (ENC).  

SPECIFICATIONS:

6 microphones Hybrid Adaptive ANC technology, effectively block out background noise up to 45dB 

Frequency Response (Output): 20Hz-20KHz

Noise Reduction:

• -45dB attenuation nominal 50-200Hz
• -55dB max attenuation @150Hz

The key point is the price under US$70 (plus postage). How could I resist?

Please see the section on bugs

Sounded too good to be true for the money, unsurprisingly I found that it indeed did not live up to the claims. However I thought I'd give them a good looking at here and compare to my Bose QC Buds (first generation) which makes less substantial ANC claims. So lets have a look at what you get

So, the PineBuds are clearly much smaller (which brings disadvantages I'll come back to) and the case has a slider lid not a flip lid. Both have magnets to help lock them into the charging points but the Pine case is much easier to open (even if the buds are harder to pull out with your fingers.

Unlike the Bose you can leave the lid open because they don't "turn on" until you remove them from the case. Further you can actually turn them off (or if they loose bluetooth they'll turn off automatically after 5 minutes).  This is itself a great advantage over the Bose which if left alone will run till the battery is down and if that condition lasts too long (say, a few weeks) you may find that the Bose won't re-charge.

That's covered under warranty, but why have them gone for a few weeks?

Looking closer we can see the size difference more clearly

and the part which fits into your ear is quite different (because they both have a different strategy of fitting).

Both buds have a different strategy for touch input, and I'd expected when reading the documentation that these would be more like the SkullCandy INDY ANC buds (which I prefer the operation of) than the Bose. Turned out this assumption was wrong (but may be programmable to how I want it).

This results in a more subtle ear presence, but not as much as you may like to imagine

What isn't perhaps obvious is the difference that this makes in terms of actually touching the right part of the earbud when giving it your request (you know, answer that call, turn the volume up/down, change track, change ANC levels ...). This has meant that I get a lot more mis-touch operations when using the PineBuds than I do with the Bose.

While the "granularity" of volume adjustments was better on the PineBuds the mistouch events pissed me off more than the steps clearly audible as being a bit too much on the Bose. Using the Bose App solves this problem but when you're driving or doing something else on the phone do you really want to go through the app for every fucking thing?

At this point its worth saying "I'm not leaving my Bose Buds for this product".

Audio quality

This is of course subjective, but having used buds, over ear, on ear and whatnot in listening (even professionally) for some dozens of years I can say that the PineBuds are sufficient but they are not in the same league as the Bose, when it comes to accuracy and clarity or even depth of bass (no I don't mean just cranked up artificial bass).

Worse, in phone calls strange digital processing artifacts occur from time to time. This results in strange "independence" of the voice in each ear (probably caused by brief failure of comb filters) or even some vocal distortion (not unlike clipping) to be briefly heard.

When no music is playing background low level noise can be heard. Note, this is not typical white (or pink) noise but is more consistent with little bits of binary chatter in the background. Perhaps some bleed from the small CPU system?

Overall I'd rate audio as a 6 or 7 out of 10 (and the Bose a solid 9.5 out of 10)

NOTE: for some people an important point will be that they can be used independently. That's right, if you like being able to use one bud in one ear then these allow this. Better it can be either bud, which is helpful if you drive on the left side or the right side of the vehicle as you can pick which one fits what you want to achieve. Say have the window down but still make calls by putting the "inside ear" in, or if you have a passenger and want to make calls putting the earbud in the opposite ear to the passenger.

bonus points for that feature.

ANC levels

Its hard to say without measurements but subjectively the ANC (any level that it had right out of the box) is inferior to the ANC of the Bose. Its worth noting I only have ANC and Aware programmed in as my preferred settings on the Bose. As it happens one has to toggle through 5 settings on the PineBuds to get to the setting before where you are ... fuck me.

ANC is hard to judge but I've got a few tests (like the pushing down of the background birds here or the neighbours quintet of yapping little irritating dogs).

So lackluster is this ANC (sure ain't 55db says a guy who regularly uses 28db earplugs) that I'm wondering if replacing the standard silicone tips with "memory foam" types will actually make them better.

• ambient mode: again another change in curve for music reproduction (bass sounds a bit wooly) doesn't really seem to pass much through
• ANC off: best audio of them all and basically behaves like nice BT buds (no noise)
• standard ANC: fridge motor sounds fade into the background (subtle change in music playback curve)
• Super ANC (not so subtle but not offensive different change in curve deepness of bass disappears)

all a bit subtle, but the thing is when you compare it to the Bose you don't get anything like this. That's why you pay the extra for the Bose. Its up to you if you think you can afford the Bose (or say the Apple or even the SkullCandy) or will notice the difference. Finally you are in no danger of situational awareness failures caused by ANC.

Ear fit (and the silicone tips)

As seen above these buds use a "common" half sphere dome silicone bullet that allows a seal in the ear canal. Accordingly its important to try the sizes to find the right fit for you. In my case I found the middle one the right one, while with the Bose I found the smallest to be best. So try them.

When put into my ear (like most) they sat nicely and weren't annoying (well more than buds are actually are full time annoying unless you're sitting and not chewing, talking or drinking when they suck). 

what I think about ANC?

Basically when you make a call the listener will need to hear you (gosh, calls you say?), in this respect I had hoped that the lack of ANC may translate to a better listening experience for the person I talk to. This is so far shaping up to be about on a par with every BT headset I've used.

Summary

So, if you're:

• on a budget
• interested in modding the software
• like the features such as powering off each bud

I won't be giving up my Bose for long trips in my (noisy) car (4WD wagon) but will most certainly be keeping these PineBuds ... besides I'm still interested to see how the new foam tips go.

Annoyances

• tap registration is patchy, made worse by the small active area on what are small buds to begin with
• a double edged sword is that "Volume Down" is a very small increment (which I like) but requires a few presses to activate. So if you have "volume blasting in your ear" you end up not being able to turn them down fast without doing all sorts of other things (like pausing or hanging up) 

Bugs

I'll update this as I find more

• bluetooth driver bug: When playing music using my default music player, putting my phone in my pocket pauses the music (no other BT device I have causes this)
• occasionally fails to pass through phone calls (or indeed anything). At this time they show connected, the phone shows its connected but nothing. Turn off bluetooth and turn back on again to fix.
• bluetooth range is crappy, even in my own kitchen (especially when power is not 100%)