The case claims it will provide three full charges while on the go, though that seemed somewhat optimistic in our real-world testing. We’ll also note it took 2.5 hours to juice the ‘buds to full strength from empty.
That’s important, as the Here One offer just around two hours of wireless music streaming per charge — less than we’d been told at their
CES 2017 debut — and that’s the shortest runtime in their price class. While Here One do a lot more than your average pair of true wireless buds, the battery shortfall is extremely limiting — it’s barely enough time to use the ‘buds on a short flight.
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Another quibble is the Bluetooth connection, which faltered occasionally with an
iPhone 6 perched in our back pocket, though they offered impressive range with clear line of sight. The buds also had to be manually re-paired on a few occasions; a message from the app informed us they couldn’t be found, forcing a trip to Bluetooth settings. Doppler Labs said this is an anomaly, and suggested some solutions like resetting the app and the phone. After charging the buds overnight the problem ceased, but it’s something to be aware of.
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There are a ton of new options in the true wireless earbud genre, but few of them do what Here One does.
Nuheara’s IQbuds, which we checked out briefly at CES 2017, appear to be the strongest challenger in the “hearables” genre at present, offering a very similar feature set.
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However, at $300, the short battery life continues to be a hindrance for music streaming, and we caution potential buyers to be realistic about their expectations there before pulling the trigger.
(20min delay)