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Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

Airpods dying on conference calls has become another common part of the joke that is conference calls generally. Seeing that happen constantly has turned me off buying them :-/

Well, that and the fact that I'd definitely lose one in the first month of ownership.

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They aren’t really designed for conference calls. It’s more for listening to music and answering a few calls when they happen. AirPods are more of a light workout or entertainment headphones. Jabra, Plantronics, and the like are for conference calls.

I do use them for conference calls but I know they have limited capabilities. My 14 hour Jabra headset will do just fine and have noise cancellation.

> It’s more for listening to music

If only. At this price, you have hundreds of options with much better sound quality

At this price point you are paying form factor and lightweight. Bose and Sony have much better headphones at a similar price point. Both are much bigger and may have cords but the quality is much better. They last longer too.

At this price you're paying for recognisability and affluence signalling. Apple will be able to launch a 'limited series' of 'black airpods with gilded touch rings' - with the colour being the only differentiator from the regular product - at a 50% price increase and see considerable sales.

> At this price you're paying for recognisability and affluence signalling.

Give it a rest, Apple makes great hardware with great software. That's why people buy it, nothing to do with being cool.

Legit question: what headphones are you talking about?

Requirement: in-ear and no wires or over ear hook thing.

Here is a sample of the headphones that I own:

    1. Sennheiser HD650 w/ Schiit Magni2/Modi2
    2. Sony MDR1000x
    3. Airpods

The Airpods sound...not great. Especially when compared to the Sennheisers. Still, I am not going to carry a large pair of headphones (or a dac/amp) everywhere I go just so I can have the very best (tm) audio experience. The reality is that most listening environments are _terrible_ and much of the quality of a given audio device is lost. Airpods check a lot of boxes that are not checked by my other headphones.

Airpods dying on conference calls has become another common part of the joke that is conference calls generally. Seeing that happen constantly has turned me off buying them :-/

Like everything in life -- you use the right tool for the job.

If you're on a lot of conference calls, then you buy a headset or something else suited to that task. AirPods are not that item. They're for listening to music while running, or at work, and answering the occasional phone call.

I don't complain that my Hello Kitty-branded eeePC 701 can't run the latest AI framework.

If you want to do business, you buy a business tool.

I find the best solution is to just use one at a time. The other charges while talking. They charge must faster than they get consumed, so you can use steady-state schema all day with zero interruption.

This might bethought of as a feature - if you're having that many long conference calls on the regular, you're probably have much bigger problems...

It's more the hip PMs and business-side folks who are on calls a good percentage of any given day, trying to use them for work, than too-long meetings killing them all at once. I don't think they've got the battery life for people in those roles, but boy do they really want to use them. Good for a chuckle a week or so if you're spending even 2-3 hours a week on calls with those sorts.

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