Yeah they offered wireless earbuds for all of a year and a half before shutting it down an pulling the product, just to release wireless headphones which haven't been pulled from the shelves quite yet.
Maybe this is their next speaker in a line of barely-supported short lived audio products.
I am a little salty over their decision to remove a headphone jack from the fp5 in order to push their shitty audio projects that they drop in a few years anyway...
Just chiming in to say the UX of these adapters on Android is kind of poor. This is for a variety of reasons, but the main thing that stands out to me as a replacement to 3.5mm:
a 'dumb' audio output is treated as a USB device, which means the phone needs to be unlocked when you plug it in to register, you can't just shove it in like you could with 3.5mm and have your audio routed accordingly.
Connection integrity can be kinda flaky when inserted (could be more of a physical variable); if the connection cuts out, you need to remove and re-insert.
On the go I don't mind Bluetooth headphones, but at my workplace where I frequently need to plug my earphones into different devices that's just a no go.
Have you ever tried one of these adapters? There will be compatibility issues with some headphones, as it always is. Also, it is a true nuisance to have an adapter with an unused charging port dangling around when picking it up and going anywhere even within the workplace.
There's other posts on Lemmy that go much more into detail on why Bluetooth headphones are not the go to solution for all situations and the issues that come with adapters.
Seriously, why all these workarounds when phones could just have a jack? Fortunately there are (still) brands that offer that.
push their shitty audio projects that they drop in a few years anyway...
I was under the impression those were released following a pine64-like model, where the intention is the community designs and supports custom firmware for the buds XL to replace Fairphone's stock firmware?
According to current reverse engineering efforts on the FP forums the buds XL are running some generic Qualcomm firmware (assumedly on a CSR102 series SoC?), which is flashed to the headphones via Fairphone's Fairbuds app
We will inevitably see how long these are supported for, as I'm planning to get one at some point...
As for the original Fairbuds TWS I have no idea what they were thinking there 🤦♂️ fairtrade plastic doesn't carry much weight if the product is still very likely going to end up as unrecyclable ewaste
The headphones are fantastic. The earbuds on the other hand are medicore irreparable e-trash. If i didn't get them for free with my FP4 i would have asked forna refund.