Earbuds are about situation-appropriate sacrifices. They’re about giving up battery life for portability, or about surrender calling features for comfort. If you want to choose a great pair of earbuds, you only need to understand the sacrifices you’re making, and be certain they’re aligned with your needs.
For example, if you were choosing earbuds to be used during your exercise routine, then you really only need them to last for a couple of hours. You probably wouldn’t care about how they felt after 5-hours of wear. Because unless you were running a marathon, you’d never hit the 5-hour mark.
Likewise, you probably don’t care about having 20-hours of battery life, because you’re not going to work out for 20-hours each day. Depending on what you’re looking to find, these kinds of tradeoffs make up the difference between an excellent pair of earbuds for someone else, and an excellent pair of earbuds for you.
HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds
HYPEN Wireless Earbuds are like a marketer’s science project. It feels like someone surveyed large groups of music fans, found out what the average person wanted to get from a pair of earbuds, and then built earbuds around their results. The best way to describe these earbuds is well-rounded.
Consequently, HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds aren’t exactly leading the pack in any one particular category. But they do try and deliver on every essential element of performance. For instance, these earbuds use a touch control system in place of analogue buttons. Touch systems are becoming increasingly popular among earbuds, but for the time being, they’re still relatively uncommon.
Having achieved solid baseline performance, HYPHEN then added a few extra features to help set these earbuds apart. They’ve got extra battery charging features, greater-than-average wireless connectivity, and a generally sturdy construction that isn’t going to let anyone down. But the generalist nature of these earbuds also means they’re not necessarily the right decision for all people in all circumstances.
Build & Design
Physically speaking, these earbuds look similar to AirPods. That’s mostly because they have an extended antenna which drops from the earpiece. It’s also because these earbuds are available in white, though the resemblance doesn’t disappear entirely when you’re using the black or gray versions. The body of the earphone is a material primarily composed of plastics, but actually has an appearance which is closer to glass. It even feels somewhat similar to glass.
Additionally, these earbuds are constructed with an IPX5 waterproof certification. In addition to water, it protects the buds from sand, dust, and small bits of debris. However, for the sake of comparison, that’s actually one of the weaker waterproof ratings. It indicates these earbuds will be safe from sweat and rain, but you probably don’t want to take them into the shower with you. It’s best to consider HYPEN earbuds water resistant instead of waterproof.
As mentioned earlier, HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds use a touch control system. These kind of systems use digital touch-sensors, not unlike the kind of technology behind a smartphone screen. Because you don’t have to deal with small analogue buttons, like so many other types of true wireless earbuds, it’s much easier to maintain effortless control. You only have to memorize a couple of tapping patterns to control everything these earbuds can deliver.
Voice Assistance and Tap Controls
Earbuds tend to provide pretty limited support when it comes to voice assistants. For example, you might be able to use them to pause or play with a voice command. HYPHEN primarily drives commands of volume, track ordering, and voice assistants through touch controls.
A double tap on either earbud will switch between songs, either skipping forward or backward, depending on which earbud you touch. It’s only one tap to answer or hang-up a call. Though the fact it’s only one tap to hang-up does make it slightly easier to accidentally hang up on someone. It also makes it a good idea to learn the various touch commands before you try taking a call.
If you want to adjust your volume up or down, doing so during a call can actually get pretty tricky if you’re not prepared for it. Notice, this isn’t only a tap-control device, it’s a touch-control device. Instead of tapping to increase or decrease volume, you simply hold your finger against the earbud.
Intuitively, the right earbud will increase volume, while the left earbud will decrease it. You can also use these patterns to launch whatever virtual assistant you’ve got installed on your device. That includes support for Siri, Cortana, and every other virtual assistant that might come to mind.
Wireless Connectivity
HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds make their wireless connection through Bluetooth 5, which allows for fairly seamless pairing. And essentially instant pairing from the moment you pick up the earbuds from the charging case. Bluetooth 5 actually supports some little-understood battery saving features, as well.
The HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds are capable of delivering their connection across a 50-foot radius, which might be considered high-average. Though whether or not you can really get 50-feet depends on the quantity and quality of objects in the way of your signal. Relative to the kind of earbuds these are trying to compete with, it’s a small but significant advantage.
Battery Lifespan
The HYPEN Wireless Earbuds provide a 17-hour lifespan. Of course, that’s after you’ve accounted for the charging case. When you’re only looking at the individual earbuds, you’ll find their lifespan to be closer to 3.5 hours. But that’s a pretty pessimistic estimate. If you’re listening to lower levels of volume, or you’re mostly chatting instead of listening to music, then you’ll find that battery lifespan can easily spring up another 90-minutes or so.
HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds have an integrated wireless charging feature. When you want to charge the buds, you just place them into an included holding case, and then place the case atop a wireless charging platform. That way, you don’t need to end up dealing with adapters of any sort.
Additionally, these earbuds deliver a pretty compelling rapid recharge feature. It takes about 15-minutes to restore nearly 80% of the battery capacity, and get you back to listening to your music. It’s easy to underappreciate this kind of rapid recharge. When your earbuds run out of battery, and you want to keep using them, you don’t want to endure an hour-long charging process before you can get back to what you were doing.
It may be worth noting that like most similar earbuds, the standby time on each earbud is actually quite low, only a few days. Because these buds will spend so much time in their charging case, that isn’t actually a problem unless you try and move the earbuds without their case.
Audio Quality
With respect to audio quality, HYPEN Wireless Earbuds sound terribly similar to dozens of other true wireless earbuds. However, the sound profile doesn’t have the usual athletic-bias which occurs in so many charging case earbuds. Instead, these earbuds have paid particular attention to clarity in mid-tones, and to a lesser extent, in the treble range.
Plus, their sound seems designed to stay quite even under all kinds of different circumstances. When you’re dropping the volume levels to lower settings, you still find pretty steady and consistent tones. It’s not uncommon for earbuds like this to provide clarity in one range of tones, or one particular range of volume settings. It’s less common to provide even stability, especially outside of audiophile equipment.
If you don’t like this configuration and would like to swap over to a more athletic soundscape, you’ll need to make use of an equalizer. That’s actually one thing that HYPEN cannot do for you, you’ll need to dig up an app on your own. Like most pairs of earbuds, some degree of audio quality depends on noise isolation, which brings us to silicone ear-tips.
Comfort Options
Once it’s in your ear, the body is ergonomically designed to stay in place. Similar to AirPods, the extended portion of the earbud can actually be used to help wiggle and adjust the bud while getting it seated. Outside of the physical chassis, HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds use fairly standard ergonomic ear-tips. If you’ve ever used in-ear headphones before, you’ve almost certainly encountered similar pairs.
With respect to noise isolation, these ear-tips are about average. And when it comes to sizing options, you’ll find no surprises, either. HYPEN includes three size options, which is pretty much the industry standard. Three size options ought to be enough for virtually everyone to find an adequate fit. It only becomes limiting when you start to compare these earbuds to much more expensive equipment.
Other Considerations
HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds support calling in both ears, something that’s actually increasingly absent from many mainstream sports-type earbuds. HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds include a charging case, micro USB cable, user guide, and three pairs of silicone ear tips. It also includes a replacement set of silicone ear tips, which can be pretty useful after about 18-months of use.
Who Should Choose HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds?
The touch control interface isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it’s smartly designed, and one of the better control systems out there right now. Using Bluetooth 5 ensures support for the kind of codecs and sound files people want to use for their wireless music, even if you want to use high resolution audio files. Moreover, it helps support a fairly impressive 50-ft connection radius.
IPX5 waterproofing isn’t something to brag about, but it’s better than nothing. It allows these earbuds to enter athletic and outdoor environments with confidence. If you already have a wireless charging station, these earbuds are only more compelling.
Last but not least, the fast-charging feature really helps these earbuds provide far more utility than their competition. Being able to get your earbuds back into operation after about 15-minutes means you can stop worrying about forgetting to recharge your audio equipment. That makes the HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds a good choice for someone who highly values battery performance and strong connectivity.
Meet Derek, “TechGuru,” a 34-year-old technology enthusiast with a deep passion for tech innovations. With extensive experience, he specializes in gaming hardware and software, and has expertise in gadgets, custom PCs, and audio.
Besides writing about tech and reviewing new products, Derek enjoys traveling, hiking, and photography. Committed to keeping up with the latest industry trends, he aims to guide readers in making informed tech decisions.
What would you say, competition between HUB HiFi and the Hyphen? Which one wins?
Thanks a lot!
Do not buy this.
My earbuds stopped pairing months ago & I have been struggling to get any resolution from Rolling Square for over four months. They said they were sending new ones but then didn’t. Now they’re dragging me through the whole process again, being uncooperative & slow to respond (a week and they don’t reply until I chase it!) & employing delay tactics to try to avoid replacing their faulty product.
I can see multiple other people have the same product fault & terrible service.
Yes I would agree, my buds were faulty. Took weeks for them to acknowledge this despite me following the process. I was the. Told I would get a replacement but couldn’t tell me when it could be 3-4 months! Now trying with great difficulty to get a refund
Hey, I’ve never commented on an article before – not really my bag – but wanted to say that that was a really balanced, thought out and informative review. Well done!
People, i just received mine in white colour.
Sound quality: same as wired headphone comes with any iPhone/iPod. Little more bass though. Not Gold standard as they have claimed during campaign.
Built quality, horrible, nothing like Swiss design like. Glue flowing outside, all joints are not seamlessly aligned. Some spots polycarbonate is like vomiting.
Till Rolling Square address this do not buy it.
I was stupid, as i also backed their first project, which was their mini USB key ring charging cable, micro USB and lighting, both died after 2 months.
I realised this today when i contacted their support.
Received mine in Black and i have to say i have no idea what your talking about. The build quality is awesome. Mine are flawless, have you contacted them as you might have a faulty pair. Sound is amazing, better than my previous apple airpods which my son now has. If you read the comments section on indigogo for Hyphen its filled with glowing reports on the earbuds.
Overall they are faultless and im very happy with mine.
Same here and I also have the foam tips that can basically fit any ear.
My son and I just received ours – were delighted – sound quality is great – I’ve got my iPhone sound setting on small speakers and I’m hearing notes and sounds I’ve never heard before in my music collection. Build quality is superior, touch controls will take some getting used to but work just fine. Telephone conversations are crystal clear.
All in all I’m blown away by them!
These earbuds are god awful. Don’t buy them. Theyre so problematic and complicated to work with. WAY too many technical issues and ive not even had them for two weeks. Absolutely ridiculous.
In my experience they are complete gamble. I´ve held 3 pairs in my hands so far. One was flawless, one was terribly built and the third one arrived with the little knob for the earpiece broken. I had to glue it to the Hyphen – they provided a video instruction for that – as it seems to be a recurring problem. Also after 2 weeks of using, one of the earbuds died completely, which one earpiece getting no bluetooth connection at all – even though they were handled with the care of a parent touching their newborn for the first time.
Also, voice quality is rather shite.
Got mine today ; left one wont connect whatever i do: i wait and see what they say . Pretty bad for a start
I currently have the same trouble, it used to work fairly well during 2 weeks and now the left earbud won’t appear on the Bluetooth menu, only the right one.
I will contact Rolling square about this, but i don’t have much hope for a replacement from them or a refund
Hey Sam, can you tell us how that turned out, I have the same problem.
There is away to reset them since when I got mine they won’t connect. After I reset them, they work fine.
Nice design but crappy sound quality.
Total waste of money 😉
Left is the main earbud. Right connects to left or independent. Get it?
hi, I got min 2 weeks ago and been using it ok – quality is good, sound quality is acceptable (definitely better than standard iphone provided wired one), just right side would disconnect momentarily in large crowds (meaning heavy interference ). So far I found with that price level it is acceptable.
I bought these thinking they’d compete with AirPods. They do not sit well in the ear. They easily misfire (pause, disconnect a call, etc) when you try to reset them in your ear. They often do not both pair at the same time ending up with audio in only one ear. They are useless for phone calls. And if you try to switch to the phone for the phone call, Hyphen disconnects you from the call.
I personally think they are 1 star above useless. They functionally work when they work. They just rarely work.
I agree. See my review down below.
Technical Quality is very good, but they slide out of the ears easily, which is not so good for an “ear”-bud.
Cant connect both at the same time in iphone8.
first pair had one defective bud, took over a month to receive replacemement.
The buds dont seem to sit evenly in the charging block have to wiggle tem a little to reconnect charge.
The phone is seeing both but wont connect at the same time. Even with reset etc etc…
Second rate, at best!
Mine were problematic from the get go. The earbuds had problems connecting and resetting (touch controls wouldn’t register). I eventually got them to work but then had another issue with the touch control area (TCA) being too sensitive (1st they wouldn’t work then they were too sensitive!). When I’m wearing them, the TCA would touch my ear and would either change the volume or just turn them off. It was the worst when watching a video while having lunch. The movement of my jaws would cause them to touch my ears and they would turn off. Frustrating! The buds also didn’t fit well into the case. Sometimes I would have to push them down to get a confirmation from the LEDs that the contacts engaged to charge.
I almost returned them but the cost of paying for shipping plus 10% the cost of the earbuds, plus the whole hassle of doing it seemed like it wasn’t worth it. So I stuck with them. The auto shut off when placed in the case eventually stopped working and they would stay connected to my phone until I manually disconnected using my phone’s BT settings. They worked “decently” for a while (occasional random shut downs notwithstanding), but very recently the left earbud would just turn off and would be unresponsive to touch and not turn on to connect again.
The idea for the design seems sound, but the execution was very poor. I won’t be considering touch sensitive controls on my earbuds from now on. Rolling Square also need to improve on their QA/QC (a lot).
This was my very first time funding an Indiegogo project, and based on it, I would now be very wary of doing any crowd-funding in the future. It was a very bad experience.
I do not recommend the Hyphens.
They don´t work well, simple! They disconnect very very very frequently. I do not recommend this not even to my enemies.
ONE OF THE WORST PURCHASES I’VE EVER MADE, 88$ for nothing. I’m still waiting their reply to my numerous emails, i said that i have a problem with the HYPHEN microphone, and they asked me a recording by email, I’ve sent the recording but without any reply or answer. They have a really bad connection (they connect even in the case, even if i don’t wanna use them), problem with the microphone (there is an horrible sound for the people who listen to me), and also they removed me from their mailing list to not post any review in Rolling Square, DONT BUY THEM EVEN FOR FREE
I bought 3 pairs and two have stopped working within days. 3rd pair I have not used yet. the support is shocking and asks to make a video to proof it is not working properly. So the supporters that trusted RollingSquare are not trustworthy in return.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS, NOT WORTH THE HASSEL.
After a long wait i got the earbuds, but couldn’t pair both sides at the same time. They sent one side of replacement earbud, it had the same pairing problem. They offered to send another replacement earbud, i ask’ed them for a new working pair of earbuds, so i can be sure it’s 100% working. after a 4 months ping pong of submitting technical requests, uploading videos that show the problem and countless emails, that’s the least they should do. They refused, now i waiting for a refund.
I’ve been using mine for more than 1 year now and they haven’t let me down once. The bass is kicking very well and the mids and highs are superb. Battery life is amazing, the only thing I’m not a fan of is the case design, but other than this, they are a top product for the price.
Worst earbuds I’ve ever purchased. Customer service makes you jump through so many hoops just to show that you are having an issue. They wanted me to record myself with my phone attempting to reset the pair of earbuds, which is absolutely stupid. They wouldn’t offer assistance to me without having that video and sure enough they still wont pair. Don’t make the mistake of thinking these guys are in it for the customer experience. They will do everything they can to prevent you from getting a working pair of earbuds. Buy samsung or apple. Avoid these sh*tty headphones at all costs.