Wave Drop Wireless Earbuds

Details

Wireless earbuds specified the way a measurement is specified rather than the way a box is. Every feature is on the buds the day you buy them, the app is optional and needs no account, and the case opens with two screws. Four numbers are routinely wrong in this aisle. Cancelling is quoted as a bare depth, usually the single best figure at 100 Hz, with no band beside it, which hides the fact that hybrid cancelling does almost nothing above 2 kHz. Battery life is quoted with no volume and no codec, so a figure measured at 50 percent on SBC is compared against a figure measured at 70 percent on LDAC. The case total is quoted as though charging were free, so a 500 mAh case is claimed to refill a pair of 65 mAh buds five times. And the codecs are left vague behind the word Hi-Res. Here is the arithmetic, done on the page.

• Cancelling is hybrid, feedforward plus feedback: up to 38 dB at 100 Hz, 25 dB averaged across 100 Hz to 1 kHz, and under 8 dB above 2 kHz, where the ear tip seal does the work instead. All measured on an IEC 60318-4 ear simulator in an artificial head
• Buds 6 hours 30 minutes with cancelling on, at 75 dB SPL, on AAC. 8 hours 40 minutes with cancelling off, same volume, same codec. 4 hours 50 minutes on LDAC at 990 kbps with cancelling on. Three figures, three conditions
• Bud cell 65 mAh at 3.85 V, which is 0.25 Wh each. Case 500 mAh at 3.85 V, which is 1.93 Wh. A pair of buds takes 0.50 Wh, and charging is about 85 percent efficient, so the case gives about three and a quarter refills. That is 28 hours in total with cancelling on, not the 32 the number on the case would suggest
• Codecs by name: SBC, AAC and LDAC. No aptX, because we hold no licence for it, and no Hi-Res sticker standing in for a codec list
• 11 mm dynamic driver, liquid crystal polymer diaphragm, 16 ohm, 100 dB SPL per mW. Response 20 Hz to 20 kHz on an IEC 60318-4 ear simulator, within plus or minus 3 dB from 20 Hz to 8 kHz
• Bluetooth 5.3, multipoint to two devices, transparency on a physical tap rather than in a menu
• IP54 on the buds, tested to IEC 60529. The case is not rated and we do not print one for it
• Case battery is a Rs 590 part behind two Torx T4 screws with no adhesive, fitted by you in about five minutes
• The bud cells are 65 mAh pouches welded to the flex, and we will not pretend that is a kitchen-table job. A bud comes back to us and returns with a new cell at Rs 690, and no turnaround time is printed because there is no service network yet to hold one
• Optional app, no account ever required including for firmware, no telemetry on by default, no promotional notification, and nothing held back behind the app
• Firmware updates until July 2030, and an update never removes a feature
• There is no Shuunnya service-centre network. Everything above that needs us means posting the buds in