Reviews Introducing Echo Buds – Wireless earbuds with immersive sound,active noise reduction, and Alexa

While Honest Reviewer say The Pros, Cons and Oks for Echo Buds (HR)..

Pros:__________
• Walking or running, I felt these buds would not leave my ear as you get an overall tight seal. This is very good because any lose in-ear buds will lose not only volume, but the bass quality of a song.
• Very plain looking. No branding as they look like just any regular earbuds. Big fan of this because; One, less likely to get stolen, and two, they’re discrete looking. I’m not a fan of being a walking billboard on tech that I already paid money for. This is why I respect that Amazon isn’t following that system with these buds (except for the case, but nobody is perfect).
• If you’re indoors, these little guys are just the same as if you have an Amazon Echo in your ear. You don’t need to press anything but just say “Alexa,” and Alexa will be ready to go.
• It didn’t take long for me to go get used to the touch controllers. Amazon also went a step further to allow you to customize the function of them. (I just stuck to what was already programmed because the layout they provided is very easy to master.)
• No issues when I got sweaty while I was running with them. As Amazon requests, you need to clean them after you take them off. I just used my shirt and it was fine, nothing fancy.
• The earbuds know when you take them out of your ear and will pause your music the moment it leaves your ear. I try to trick this feature, but the earbuds weren’t fooled. You can restart your music either asking Alexa or just tap the earbud.
• The sound is good but not Air Pods or Bose level. The sound isn’t bloated, has decent bass, and overall has decent balance tones. The best music for this is in the middle that doesn’t rely on a strong bass or deeper sound levels (will explain more later on).
• I did hear a decent amount of reduction of sound thanks to Amazon's/Bose's noise-reduction software. Note, this isn't a noise-canceling but it blocks out smaller sounds like the humming sound when your refrigerator turns on, or the sound of cars going by if you’re inside. These types of small sounds are blocked by this software and it does a decent job.
• You can use one earbud independently. I found this feature the best when you’re driving. Taking phone calls and even asking directions by using Alexa is definitely a useful tool to use when driving.
• If you have an Amazon Echo at home, these earbuds will allow you to make an audio call right to the Echo. Tested this out and it works fine. The response and the receiving end didn’t have any issues. I believe you can also do this feature with any of your friends who have an Echo, but I have to assume they’re some restrictors so you don’t call them in the middle of the night.
• With three built-in microphones in each earbud, I felt the call quality to be excellent.
• Amazon has added a “sidetone” feature which allows you to hear your voice inside the earbuds. I believe with this you can modulate your voice so Alexa can be able to recognize your voice better when you’re in a loud environment. It’s an interesting tool to have, but you need the app for this.
• A built-in quick charge feature on the case will allow the battery to gain a 50% increase in battery life around 20 minutes. What I like about the battery layout specifically is it will show you when you have a lot (green light), an all right (yellow light), or a poor battery life (red light). You can also just check the app, or ask Alexa, but this way is quicker to know right away.
• The wingtips that come with these earbuds are useful if you want to feel a little more comfortable that your buds won’t fall out. Even with the soft silicone cover, I honestly didn’t feel the need to wear them as the earbuds stick pretty well in your ear (or at least in my ear). This will probably be different for you, given different ear sizes.
• Amazon makes the earbuds visually identifiable for which ear it goes in to. A small feature but very useful in any day to day lifestyle.
• The case is small enough to put it in your pocket, with your phone.
• You can still use Siri if you want as well as Apple Music and Spotify.
• I have an iPhone and so far there have been no disconnections between the earbuds and the phone.

Cons and Oks:__________
• Micro USB instead of USB-C for charging. Amazon is not letting this go and I have no idea why.
• I had no issue with my fit, but they're pretty bulky for earbud size. Depending on your ear size, some may find the fit uncomfortable. My advice is to read what others have to say to get an accurate level. As stated they fit me fine, but I will update you if it changes.
• Alexa will not work in loud environments. Just walking on the streets, with average traffic noises, Alexa wasn’t able to hear my voice. I had to put a lot of effort into getting Alexa to work when facing the outside world. Inside is fine but for loud areas, be warned.
• No volume controls on the buds. You have to either ask Alexa or use the app. If you’re in a loud environment Alexa will not be helpful, as they basically become wired headphones (without the wire).
• As I mention before, these are not “noise-canceling” but just reduces the noises around you. From my experience, this feature will not help you when you’re on a plane. It’s still an upgrade from not having anything, but it will not block all medium/loud sounds.
• No wireless charging for the case. You’re stuck with Micro USB.
• Without connected to your phone, and no Wi-Fi, Alexa will not work. I wish they created an offline Alexa so simple tasks such as increasing the volume can be performed. You can’t use any features without Wi-Fi.
• I notice the case scratches the same day I got it. In your pocket with your keys, this case will show the scratches.
• Battery life isn’t great. Around 4.30 hours of use before charging them back in the case. It’s cool that there is a quick charge on the case, but if you forget to charge the case then you’re pretty limited with time. This battery life isn’t horrible, but it sure isn’t great enough to be a pro.
• Remember, as with any Alexa, Amazon may potentially review your Alexa voice recording. This is why Alexa needs to be connected online to be used. All interactions go to the cloud because, like the Echo, Alexa is always listening. You can manually delete your Alexa interactions, but that itself is going to be time-consuming, and most of us will forget to keep doing that.
• If you disable Alexa then you’re restricted to just basic Bluetooth headphones.
• When you adjust the volume, with having the noise reduction active, the music changes in the tune. It only happens for a couple of seconds, but I notice it enough to make a note and see if anyone else has the same issue. Note, it does go away quickly.
• It took me a couple of tries to connect it with my iPhone. I had to manually pair them first on the iPhone before using the Alexa app.
• You can customize the action touch layout of the earbuds, but you’re very limited in customization.
• You also need to install the Alexa app if you want to use these earbuds fully. Amazon is pretty strict about the environment you need to be in.
• I’m not a fan of the volume. At a low volume level, the quality of any sound becomes muddy while at high levels weren’t impressive at all. They’re still respected headphones, but I wish the volume levels performed better in the hardware.
• Make sure you place the earbuds properly in the case. A couple of times the charging contacts didn’t sit properly against the case.
• The phone calls are very clear with your voice but I could still hear background noises when I gave the earbuds to a friend. He was in a room with a football game on TV, at a reasonable volume level.
• Around 5-6 mandatory agreements, you need to agree to if you want to use Alexa or configure with Amazon’s Alexa’s app.

Bottom Line:__________

Amazon always tries to find the middle ground in the quality of a product and the price you’re paying. To summarize, these earbuds fit without any wobble, all of Alexa is right in your ear, the noise reduction software does its job well, and it has a great microphone setup. I respect that there are no logos on the buds themselves and to be able to have a case to keep your earbuds charged on the go is right on point.

But to compete with Apple or Samsung, sadly I don’t think so. You have to allow Alexa to be on all the time, which reduces an already weak battery system. And if you disable Alexa then most features are limited, such as not being able to increase/decrease the volume (you will have to go on your phone)/ Also, I’m not a fan of the battery life and of course Micro USB (Amazon, please kill this) is still there, which means no wireless charging.

To be honest I felt these earbuds could be worth a little less than what they're asking. Still good earbuds, but I felt the sound isn’t anything to brag about. If you don’t want to afford the pricing of Apple, Google, or Bose earbuds, and you hate the reviews of Samsung earbuds, then this is worth it. I will say the best part of Amazon is they always have sale discounts so if these hit the $99 range you better pick them up. Just be aware you must enjoy the earbuds with the use of Alexa. If you don’t want that, then these are not worth the price.

Overall: Not the best in overall quality but the best in establishing Amazon’s Echo in earbud form.

Hope I was a help to you.
Love,
Honest Reviewer

This a word from Reviewer Rank #174,540,098,452 say A beta test sold as an actual product.

I'm a tech early adopter. I'm used to things being a little janky but functional. That describes the original v1 Kindle, but I always felt like the product was working. Like I was getting the intended experience from it. These things are not ready for wide release. Every time I interact with them, they're misbehaving in a different way. Why does the case light only blink red, no matter the charge? Why does one bud or the other (it's random!) lose charge more quickly during each use? Why is it that sometimes I have to remove the buds from my phone's Alexa app, then go through re-pairing? Why don't double taps work more than half the time? Why is "press and hold" sometimes instant and sometimes takes up to three seconds? Why do I sometimes hear the whispers of long dead relatives come from the ear buds? Mom? Is that you? AND WHY do these echo buds start to feel heavy the longer you wear them? How does that work? I don't know! It's a mystery!

My friend Wicked Melon tell us Save Your Money. Please..

I was so excited to get these. Alexa in my ears? Sounds convenient! These could not be more disappointing. Amazon should have spent a considerable amount of time polishing out the bugs in these ear buds before releasing them. The number of issues I have with them is just unreasonable. They don't charge evenly in the case. Left bud will be at 18%, right at 99%. Obviously poor charger connections in the case. The sound is PATHETIC. These things are so quiet it's a joke. I have $20 Bluetooth headphones that make these sound like tin cans. I can hold a regular conversation at max volume while using these buds and that is unacceptable considering they're supposed to be noise canceling. Ha. The only way to control volume on these is by turning up your phone media volume and/or asking Alexa to turn the volume up. No volume controls in the Alexa app like they have for other sound devices. And the noise canceling?? Doesn't work at all. Passthrough? Basically just amplifies all outside noise so you feel like you're wearing hearing aids instead of headphones. The buds do not fit properly. They do not offer large enough tips. Period. I'm a 5 ft tall petite female and these things fall right out of my head with largest tips and wings in. Within 20 minutes of having them in my ears hurt so much I can't even keep them in my ears anymore. Pretty sure the smaller tips are made for children. The touch gestures are idiotic. You try to grab the bud falling out of your ear and it thinks you're using the touch gestures, but when you're actually trying to use the touch gestures the buds ignore your touch. Like they're laughing in your face. Can't share a bud with someone... If each person has a bud it won't play music in one bud even if you're standing right next to each other. Multiple times they have just flat out stopped playing a song right in the middle of it for no reason. One of the most annoying problems??? These buds do not function in tandem with any other Amazon devices which is beyond asinine. Please do yourself a favor and do not waste money on these pieces of trash. I have nothing positive to say about them at all. I'm returning these overpriced pieces of junk.

My friend Aricsdaddy Talk Another half baked Echo product.

In theory these should be great, but they are not.

As Earbuds go they sound pretty good and are pretty comfortable, but the way they work is not good. The issues I keep having are:

1. They say connected to BT but will not work, or the audio side does not connect.
2. The BT connection keeps dropping audio which is very annoying and beats the point of having these.
3. The Buttons (touch) are most often un responsive, or select the wrong thing.
4. When you ask for Alexa, you have to pause until she responds before you can tell her what to do.
5. The graphic equalizer does not respond to what it should. (I wanted to have less bass, but it did not change.)
6. They also make a static like click when they engage sound for some reason.

This reminds me of getting the Echo Auto. Nice idea, but at first was rushed out to people before all the bugs were ironed out.

Review junj64 said Back to the drawing board....

So...
First off, these headphones are pretty easy to pair. With the Alexa app you can just open the case and they pair automatically or you can pair with Bluetooth. Having the Alexa app is good because it shows you left / right batter life, case battery life, noise reduction button, mic mute and EQ for the headphones.
Now, Lets start with the rubber tips included. They say the come with small, medium and large tips but in reality they come with Mini, Small and Medium tips. I took the larger tips of my beatsx in order to use them on these headphones which was a bit annoying. The sound is "muddy". Certain sounds sound good but most sounds very low like hi hats, drums etc. even when EQ them , the sound wont change much. The volume on these buds are pretty low. Putting them on Max on my iPhone 11 it feels like i had them on 50 to 60% on my Beatsx for comparison. Also, At high volume theirs distortion which is odd since they are not even loud. Also, Alexa keeps telling me to pair them when Its already connected and I’m listing to music on it already...Im pretty disappointed with this purchase and it has made me question every 5 star review that i see in the review section. There mediocre at best.

My friend ghorowitz3 said Offensively premature product launch.

This was an offensively premature product launch. I was excited by the product description and pre-ordered, anxiously awaiting delivery of a product that looked to be an improvement in every way on the AirPods I have been resisting purchased. (I don’t want to be another zombie walking around with white sticks dangling from their ears). Unfortunately, it seems clear the launch date was set, not by product designers’ realistic projection of when the product would actually be ready, but management’s decision that they had to get out in front of the AirPod Pro launch. The result really should be a franchise-threatening debacle, although I’m sure Amazon will not notice a blip.

As many others have noted, calling this product glitch-prone doesn’t touch the surface. There is a design defect so glaringly obvious and debilitating that there is no way Amazon did not know about it well in advance: The charging case wells are too small to accommodate the “wingtips” that are so cleverly designed to create a tight fit in the ear that also seals well enough to produce (together with the Bose technology) astonishingly effective noise reduction. The knock-on effects of this screw-up kill the product: With wingtips on (and nobody could seriously suggest they should be removed) the buds fail to connect to the charger at least 25% of the time, no matter how much one pushes and squeezes the case. There is no indication that contact has failed, so you don’t realize it until one bud runs out of battery — very quickly — and for some reason this means the buds and case all lose connection to the phone. Until that happens, you have another problem: the buds, which you thought were safely dormant in your case, are actually still connected to your phone so it won’t ring out loud, or if it does and you answer nobody will hear anything because the buds are taking the call.

How do you reconnect? A good question, given that Amazon has provided essentially NO documentation or troubleshooting advice. There is a button on the case and an led light that turns different colors and occasionally flashes, but nowhere can I find any explanation of what they do/mean. Only now are message boards filling up with suggestions. Generally, the procedure consists of recharging the bud then randomly pushing buttons and reinserting buds until something miraculously happens.

Obviously Amazon knows about this, and knew before the launch. It seems clear what happened. When they tested prototype cases nobody thought to put on the wingtips, and they seemed to work fine. So they ordered production of a few million cases, and only when they came off the line did someone inevitably realize the issue. But when they raised it management said “Too late, no time to fix before we launch, and we’ve already spent $$$ on millions of cases so let’s just get them out and let the customers figure out how to deal with it.”

When connected, the buds are pretty good and have the promise of being great once the software issues are worked out. There doesn’t seem to be any way to connect to a tablet, or to connect to two devices. Maybe there is a way, but again see the lack of documentation. The most significant issue has to do with the way Alexa works. This is a potentially terrific feature but poorly explained (really not at all) and confusing. When you tell Alexa to, e.g., play something from Audible, she is not playing from your phone but through her Audible skill. Among other things, this means you will always depend on an active connection (watch out if you’re paying for data) even if you have downloaded the media — whether Audible, music, podcast, etc.

Another minor but stupid design defect, which I mention on the off chance anyone at Amazon is paying attention: The eartip sizing test, which is very neat, doesn’t work for geezers like me who have set their iPhones on Larger Text — the play button is placed so far down on a screen of blank space that it cannot be pressed to start the test. Took me forever to figure that out.

I could go on but you get the point — and by YOU I hope I am talking to Amazon. Amazon, if you are listening, you need to fix this cynical and offensive screwup and make things right with the early adopters.

As Scan95 said 24hr impression, not yet sold. 90 days to decide..

Update 3: 24hr of evaluation. Siri never worked. Looking at the blogs, this is a very common problem. Another issue I’ve noticed is currently there is no way to change the wake word on the buds. If you are an Alexa fan like me, get ready to have problems around your other devices in your house. I have a combo of 5 devices, 4 of which wake to “Alexa”. They don’t like me interacting with the buds. Presumably Amazon will likely fix this in the future; or I could change the wake word on my five devices.. which of course would take me a decade to relearn.
Update 2: tech support called. Very nice person. The buds were pending a firmware update. Which I was able to get installed. Seemed to help the double tap (pass through, noise cancel) somewhat. Tap and hold to open Siri is still a fail out of the box. Siri will flash open for about a half second and then immediately close. No prompt and not open long enough to use. Went back up to 3 stars for the super nice customer service lady who helped me troubleshoot the buds some.

Update 1: Ok so after a few hours of using them, still can’t get Siri to work. Now the double tap in the right ear doesn’t work. The sound is pretty good, and the “Alexa” voice activation seems ok. Downgraded to 2 stars for the lack of “tap”, Siri, and size.

Nov 04... just got these today. Size is a lot bigger than the people they used as models. Bluetooth pairing was clunky, took several attempts. Double tap works, sometimes. Have not been able to get Siri to work even once. Love my Alexa devices, Jury still out on these.

Another customer Eric Parrish Talk Nice buds, but....

The Echo Buds are my first experience with any wireless ear buds. The good is the ear buds produce a nice sound. Better than expected from the price point. Also, they are sensitive and responsive to the tapping features. In addition, the Echo Buds paired very easily to my iPhone. Almost immediately after registering the buds, Amazon had several e-mails delivered complete with instructional videos. The not so good is several times Alexa has not responded to my beckoning. In order to have Alexa “ always on”, the app has to be open. No support for Alexa on my iWatch, but it is nice to be able to summon Siri. Lastly, the recommendation for working out is to put the rubber cover on the ear buds; however, I am not confident of them staying in place without the rubber cover being on. Also, though the rubber cover does a great job at keeping the Echo Buds in place, they are a dust/lint magnet. I am still getting used to having them in my ear for an extended period of time. Even with the pass through on, chewing and other noises are amplified in my head. The pass through feature works well, as does the noise reduction feature. One last bit of information. The right bud’s battery seems to loose it’s charge at a faster rate compared to the left one. I don’t know how they do it with the models they use to advertise the buds, but mine are not fitting flush in my ears. I had several people do double takes as I was talking to them. They jury is still out, but this my initial thoughts.

While Kindle Keith say Don’t judge them by first impression. They will be your favorite soon.

I hate to see all the negative reviews for these. I received mine earlier today and I will admit. Straight out of the box I was not blown away. The buds looked huge but even with the pre installed tips fit well. They sound was not great. Even after tinkering with the EG I wasn’t satisfied. So I tried a different too, fit perfect but I still wasn’t getting Apple AirPod sound or even comfort. They were weighing my ears down. Then I think Ed with them some more.

Oh they get much better. Once positioned correctly in your ear (tun them like a corkscrew) and a crappy sound from 5 below is replaced with a wonderful, flexible medium range sound. As different as night and day. The features can’t be beat. Communicate to any Alexa device in your contacts, watch your fire tv, talk to Siri or alexi. For a 126 bucks, damn right, I’d buy them again. A happy happy customer.

While Larry Duane Smith said Still Deciding.

Pros.
Great sound
Good price
Connects easily
Noise reduction is really good
Buds fit in case with fit loops on them!
Fit test in app really helpful
Alexa works well
Very little latency with video

Cons.
-Not going to fit a lot of ears. Too large to fit in my wife’s ears.
-The fit loops collect dust better than a swiffer
-Not as comfortable as my AirPods.
-Case is not intuitive. I can’t tell when it’s charging/charged
-BIGGEST PROBLEM SO FAR. Buds stay connected while in case after use. When the phone rings or I’m trying to watch a video which buds in range I have to got to control center to disconnect.

Was hoping for a home run. Got a solid double. Hopefully my always connected issue is easily resolved.