In-Depth Analysis of Fairbuds: The Swappable Battery Earpods From Fairphone, Reviewing Acoustic Performance

Key Takeaways

• User-replaceable batteries offer environmental benefits, but Fairbuds lack in sound quality and ANC performance.
• Bulky design and poor microphone quality make these earbuds less than ideal despite their repairability feature.
• The Fairphone app and update process are frustrating, with EQ adjustments being the only redeeming quality for the Fairbuds.

The main feature of the Fairphone Fairbuds is that they have user-replaceable batteries in the charging case and in the earbuds. A great environmental initiative, but enough to justify buying these pretty bad-sounding earbuds? Not a chance.

These Earbuds Shouldn’t be Graded on a Curve

Jerome Thomas / How-To Geek

Earbuds should make your music sound good. But plainly, I didn’t like the way the Fairbuds sounded out of the box. The audio was thin and often hollow with the low-end suffering the worst, but the mid-range was never particularly vibrant either.

Maybe you’re wondering if the microphone quality was a redeeming aspect. Nope, that was poor too. The audio was distorted and choppy. I wouldn’t want to use these to dial into a work meeting, personally.

The general fit in my ears was okay, but they were bulky and didn’t grip especially well which made them candidates to fall out at any time. The touch controls were responsive enough, but maybe too much because I would accidentally pause or skip tracks if I wasn’t careful when readjusting them in my ears or if I wasn’t very deliberate about the gestures made with my fingers.

The active noise-canceling didn’t pull its weight either. There were times I couldn’t tell what mode I was using because outside noises were leaking in at a normal clip. I’ve tested at least 50 different pairs of earbuds (easily) over the last decade and the Fairbuds sound like they should cost around $75 (~€80) based on their overall performance—not double that.

The feature the company wants the Fairbuds to be graded against is the buds’ user-replaceable batteries. But earbuds should be judged by how well they play audio, first and foremost. At no point did I ever want to use them to listen to music though.

Okay, so About Those Batteries

Jerome Thomas / How-To Geek

Being in the consumer electronics space, I’ve thought about the nature of user-replaceable parts for a while. It’s undeniably neat that with a tiny screwdriver I have in my garage I can pop off the case and pop in a fresh, €12.95 (~$13.85) battery. Or that for €9.95, I can slide off the rubber band around each earbud and give those a renewed listening time.

Frankly, I just don’t want to do that though—at least not for earbuds. If the battery goes bad in a short period of time, three years in the case of Fairphone’s warranty, the company should cover the bad part. If I make it three, four, or five years with a pair of earbuds, then do I really want to keep using them for another several years?

Jerome Thomas / How-To Geek

Of the plethora of earbuds I still have sitting in my garage, I never get the urge to go listen to the old mediocre ones. They don’t age gracefully, getting outdated in other ways beyond their batteries. The Fairbuds also aren’t as robust as something like the Framework laptop which has a lot of pieces to its user-upgradable computer. The Fairbuds don’t have replaceable drivers, Bluetooth chips, or anything else like that.

Electronic waste is a problem, full stop, but I don’t think replaceable batteries are the solution. At least it’s not the first area of the problem to solve. Fairphone is doing other things to try and have an environmental impact for the Fairbuds like using fair trade components and offsetting the earbuds’ carbon. That’s admirable, but it still doesn’t make me want to buy the Fairbuds after spending some time with them.

There Were Other Things I Didn’t Like, Too

Jerome Thomas / How-To Geek

Trying to use the Fairphone app was an exercise in frustration. Often the app would report that it couldn’t find the earbuds, even as I was using them with my phone to listen to music. Putting them in the case and then getting them into pairing mode would sometimes get the app to see them, but doing so would also leave a trail of multiple “Fairbuds” Bluetooth profiles in my Settings app.

The times the app finally recognized them, the app wouldn’t load because a pending update was available. I tried to do the update at least five times before I got it to go through, after almost two hours, collectively, of working on it. When the update finally went through, it took closer to 20 minutes rather than the advertised 5 to 6 minutes.

There are no ANC settings in the app. Really, the only thing to use the app for is to change the EQ. But, to be positive, the Bass Boost EQ mode did help to make the earbuds sound a little better. I didn’t care for the other two presets (Flat and Main) at all. The Studio EQ mode allows people to adjust an 8-band EQ. I wasn’t interested in putting in that work with all the other issues and don’t think anyone should be required to control their own EQ, unless they specifically want to.

Are the Fairphone Fairbuds Worth Spending Money On?

Jerome Thomas / How-To Geek

The market for cheap earbuds at, or under, €150 (~$160) is vast. The Fairphone Fairbuds should not be at the top of anyone’s list.

If you feel really bad about buying AirPods, then the Fairbuds do exist. But Apple is making its own effort to combat its emissions impact by making all its products carbon-neutral within the next six years—by 2030. Which will not only cover manufacturing its products but also cover the carbon usage over the life of the products.

If the Fairbuds sounded great or had terrific ANC performance, I’d be a lot more optimistic about wanting to keep them around for as long as possible with new batteries I could replace myself. But I didn’t find either of those things to be true so I don’t want to prolong my use of something so mediocre. The idea here is sound, but the execution is off.

Fairphone Fairbuds

4/ 10

Meet the world’s most repairable premium earbuds.

Battery Life

Up to 26 hours total

Charging Case Included?

Yes

Microphones

6 total

Bluetooth

5.3

IP Rating

IP54

Driver Size

11mm

Dimensions and weight (case)

2.5 x 2.5 x 1.06 in (65 x 65 x 27mm)

Colors

Black and white

Charging Port

USB-C

Noise Cancellation

Yes

Earbud weight

~5g

Charging case weight

~73g

Bluetooth profiles

A2DP V1.2, AVRCP V1.5, HFP V1.8, HSP V1.2

Pros

• Reasonably-priced user-replaceable batteries

Cons

• Disappointing sound quality
• Unimpressive ANC performance
• Bulky design
• Poor microphone quality
• Trouble connecting with mobile app

Expand

$160 at Fairphone

Also read: