“Apple AirPods are so unreliable we don’t allow them at YC demo day”

My AirPods don’t connect correctly about 20% of the time (at minimum) and switch connections for absolutely no reason to my Mac or iPhone despite those devices having no audio activity (in the middle of an active audio call on the active device, no less).

I turn off Bluetooth on the device I’m not using when I need to do a work call as a precaution.

Every headset I had before AirPods worked better than this.

Might have Gustaf said AirPods because, let's be honest, the vast majority of people with wireless earbuds in our field are using Apple AirPods?

AirPods are by no means perfect, but they're the least problematic out of many Bluetooth earbuds I had tried in the past (granted, I've yet to try the brand that sponsor so many YouTube channels as of late). Bluetooth in general is very problematic and, if you've ever tried working with any version of the Bluetooth stack, you'd have immediately figured out why. Even BLE, which is supposed to be more restrictive, is still complex and hard to understand. And let's say you've got Bluetooth itself figured out, now you've got to make sure you've handled operating system quirks. And yes, there are quirks. If you were developing for Bluetooth on Windows or Linux and decide to do so on macOS, you'll be surprised to find that your code, even when directly translated to Swift or Objective-C, won't just work as-is because macOS has different restrictions for Bluetooth that are hardly documented anywhere. Today, macOS forces you to use a generated UUID to identify a hardware device instead of a MAC address, yet as far as I can tell it's documented nowhere as to how those UUIDs are generated.

But I digress.

Bluetooth just isn't a good tech stack for ultra-reliable audio, especially duplex audio. It's just going to have interruptions and random disconnections and reconnections. The mic quality will almost certainly stink unless the host has a better Bluetooth chipset and the peripheral does some neat tricks that likely result in lag as a tradeoff.

IMO, you don't use AirPods for any sort of audio production, except maybe if you are using them to receive cues. You use a "real" wireless lavalier mic such as the Rode Go Wireless II, which doesn't use Bluetooth at all, sounds great, handles distance and interference really well (important if you are walking around on a stage), and has a built-in audio backup in case there's interference or connection drops.

But no one actually wants to pay for real audio equipment for some reason.

I wish that companies, in particular remote ones, make quality mics and lavalier mics easily available to their employees. Only one company I've worked for provided good headphones, but never has a company provided a microphone.

There's plenty of similar experiences available to read - these expensive little things will be heading back to the retailer and swapped for something better.

I had a pair, when the battery died I decided not to replace them. They are an environmental mess as well.

I use Bose QC35 headphones via Bluetooth at the gym to listen to music. A Blue Snowball iCE for podcast type things. And wired, in ear headphones (from JBL) with a microphone on the cable for everything else.

However since a few months the microphone began to be really quiet which I could not resolve yet, now I'm back using my cable bound Jabra headset which is uncomfortable and restricts my movement during meetings...

Multiple times I have thought about pushing to get all of the Mac users a set as it is just so much of a night and day difference.

I can't get my Sony MX3's switch devices without removing and repairing. My work Bose QC35's says it's connected to both, but won't switch devices - it tries connecting, then fails and reverts to the last paired device.

I haven't had any issues for months now & the audio quality is better then my bose headphones i used to have in my experience atleast..

Also, the mic on the original AirPods were best-in-class when they came out, but they have since been bested by many other offerings (from Jabra, Sony, and others). The AirPods Pro were worse than a pair of Master and Dynamic MW30s I briefly had (which was surprising, since they are niche headphones), and they are definitely worse than my current Sony WF1000XM4s that I have now (which is even more surprising, since the mic on the WF1000XM3s were not good).

I find that Apple's wired EarPods have great microphone quality at a very accessible price.

I also want to add that Apple's BT stack on Macs works way worse than Windows.

A good reminder to myself when I'm on an important call just to set up a yeti, out of respect to the people who have to listen to me.

The former are so crappy I only use them in a pinch when communicating with others. However the ABP are fantastic. Sound quality on both ends is always fine. The noise cancelling is appreciated. The only issue I have connectivity wise is on occasion when I join a Zoom my laptop will disconnect me. Which is admittedly irritating. But not frequent enough I'd call a serious issue.