Amazon Echo Buds (newest model), True Wireless Bluetooth 5.2 Earbuds with Alexa, audio personalization, multipoint, 20H battery with charging case, fast charging, sweat resistant, Black

Really like the semi-in-ear design
My ears don’t tolerate in-ear monitors very well, but I’ve been wanting something small to keep in my bag to save my bulky over-ear and on-ear headphones from getting thrown around too much. I’ve heard old OEM Apple “hard” earbuds that shoot sound into your ear canal without actually occupying them and was impressed with the sound quality for a non-sealing earphone. Seeing these in photos, they looked like they’d offer the best of both worlds by sealing slightly (also keeping them in place better) but still offering a sense of ambient awareness and being less uncomfortable to my irritable concha cavum. What the pictures didn’t depict was the silicone skin that fits around the body and helps hold it in place better and seal slightly more. You can remove it if it’s not to your liking, but I left mine on because it does a great job of keeping them in place (even after vigorously shaking my head), and the supplemented bass is nice. I find I can wear these for about two hours before I start to get mild discomfort, much better than the 30 minutes or so with sealing in-ear monitors. In short, I’m a fan of the design and hope more brands take note.Sound quality is competent for the price. It’s not “hi-fi,” but it’s still enjoyable. You’ll get about 90% of the bass response of a fully-isolating earbud, which is pretty dang good. If I were to sum it up, I’d say they did a good job squeezing the best sound possible out of cheap components. It’s enjoyable and pleasant enough, but experienced ears can tell it doesn’t have the finesse of a more expensive model, particularly in the highs. Ultimately, I think these are very reasonably priced.Bass, mids, and treble can be adjusted in the Alexa app, which is nice, but I think the “treble” slider digs too much into the upper mids, so you can’t get more treble without also making it more shouty. All told, I left mine at near default, just a slight boost of the “mids” (which I’d personally consider low-mids). The sound is very agreeable out of the box.Speaking of app, I appreciate how easy it is to customize controls. You can assign what they do to taps (1, 2, 3, hold) per side. You can also disable them, which I appreciate.As for other features e.g. Alexa integration, I can’t say much because I don’t use them that way. I’m happy to report that these indeed can be used perfectly without the Alexa “gimmicks” (if you see that as such). Just in case it isn’t clear to someone, these use Alexa on your phone–they do not have Alexa built in by themselves.Visually and material/build-quality-wise, they’re acceptable but not impressive. Pretty non-descript appearance, and materials are merely adequate. I’m not worried about longevity/durability, but these don’t feel luxurious at all (nor should you expect them to at this price and featureset).I can’t quite comment on battery life yet because I’ve only been using these for around 10 hours total (up to 2hrs at once). So far it seems to live up to its promise, maybe even exceed.SOUND: 80/100COMFORT: 90/100FEATURES: 85/100QUALITY: 70/100VALUE: 90/100—OVERALL: 85/100RECOMMENDED: YES>> ADDENDUMI feel like this information might be useful to someone at some point:Wearing just one earbud will NOT automatically switch to mono. It’ll continue to play only its respective channel. I have a pair of JBLs that are smart enough to downmix when only one is in use, so I’m a little disappointed that these aren’t smart enough to do that.Other than that, I’m still enjoying them.

I really like these Echo Ear Buds, but I’m having some problems
I have purchased a number of inexpensive ear buds over many years. I’m also an “Amazon” person with Echo devices in several places in my home, at my office, and I’m a long-time Prime Member. I saw a good price on these Echo Ear Buds, so I thought I would try them.SOUND: The sound quality is pretty good — I mainly use my ear buds to listen to audiobooks and for phone calls while away from home. I only listen to music and podcasts occasionally. I also use the Buds for phone calls. I find the sound quality is better than my previous (cheap) ear buds.CONTROLS: the Touch Control is great and easy to use. The Echo Ear Buds only need a single tap to pause or re-start whatever I am listening to, and I find it much easier than my old ear buds. (This is a big thing for me.) However, there is no volume control — which is fine with me as I usually keep at a steady volume. There are functions controlled by double-tap, triple-tap and long tap, but I really don’t use those. My previous earbuds required a double-tap to pause or resume the book or song, and it was hard to get that double-tap done because the sensor was picky — I often had to try a bunch of times. A single tap would increase (right) or decrease (left) the volume.FIT: This is a HUGE problem for me. I struggle to keep the Echo Ear Buds in my ears. They are both loose, but the Right one, in particular, often falls out, and I have almost lost it a few times in the three weeks I have been using them. It falls out while my hands are occupied, so I can’t immediately catch it to put it back in. One nice feature — when one Ear Bud falls out, the audio pauses while the Ear Buds are separated. I sometimes have to tap the right one to resume when I get it back in. Also, the Alexa App has a FIND feature, but I haven’t found it to be all that useful. Yesterday, when I temporarily lost the Right Bud for a ew hours, the function to make loud sounds was greyed out so it wouldn’t work (but I later found the missing bud.)If I can figure out how to fix the Fit issue, I would give the Echo Ear Buds 5 stars.BLUETOOTH: I found that these Echo Ear Bud were extremely EASY to pair since I already had and used the Alexa App with my Echo devices at home. They are supposed to be able to pair with my Fire TV stick, my Fire Tablet, or a second Bluetooth device, but I haven’t tried those yet.ALEXA INTEGRATION: The Buds work great as an Alexa device. When I’m home, I say, “Alexa, Bedroom on” and the lights (with smart plugs) come on just as if I wasn’t using the Buds and was using my Alexa Show instead. There’s no conflict between the Buds and my Echo devices — the Buds appear to have priority over the other devices.The Buds allow me to have Alexa access anywhere I go without having to pull out my phone. This is especially useful in the car. One nice thing: The trigger word, “Alexa” works anytime the Buds are in — my previous buds required a triple-tap to activate the assistant, but Alexa works fine without having to tap anything.Another issue I have had a couple of times: the Right Bud stopped working for a little while. I put both buds back in the case to re-set them. The Alexa App sometimes showed the Right Bud not working, but then hours later, it seemed to work fine. I’m not sure why that happened.I had one other pair of Ear Buds I retired because they would not stay in my ears. I would really like to keep the Echo Ear Buds if I can overcome the fit problem.