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These are the Human Headphones… they’re a pair of wireless over ear headphones that don’t actually have a headband. And these headphones are perhaps the most interesting and worst performing product I’ve ever featured on this channel. The idea its self is cool, but just about everything else about them is just bad. They don’t perform better than earbuds and they’re not more convenient than headphones. Personally I’m surprised these things even made it to market and I’ll be shocked if we see a second version of the Human Headphones.
So price wise the Human Headphones retail for $400, which is squarely in Sony 1000XM3 and Bose NC 700 territory… but they have a quote un quote introductory price of $250… which is just a ploy to make you think you’re getting a deal. Regardless I still wouldn’t recommend getting these headphones at $250 I just wanted to point that out.
So the human headphones come included with a suede carrying case, and the headphones themselves when clasped together are very reminiscent to the Powerbeats Pro carrying case. They’re roughly the same size and their matte black plastic feels almost identical. And when you take them apart that’s when they’ll automatically power on and connect to your phone. Now fit wise there’s a spring loaded ear hook that’s going to hold on to your ears. It takes a few tries but after awhile you get the hang of it. Now when you’re actually wearing these headphones you definitely know they’re there cause they’re weighing down on your ears and when you walk with them on you constantly feel them undulating up and down. Simply said, I wouldn’t recommend moving around too much when wearing these headphones. And if you were to wear these headphones for long periods of time like let's say an hour… when you take these headphones off your ears are going to be very tender. And performance wise since these headphones aren’t actually create any type of a seal when you wear them, they let in a lot of ambient noise which kind of renders their Blend feature which is what they call their ambient mode useless. But also, their blend feature is just poorly implemented… it sound very artificial and tinny, there’s a constant hissing in the back ground, and there’s also an audio delay which I’ve never experienced on any other pair of headphones with an ambient mode and its also disorienting.
Now tech spec wise these headphones have an advertised battery life of 9 hours… but I don’t know how they got to that number cause the most these headphones have managed to last me on a single charge is just 3 hours while strictly using them as headphones. Cause if you use these headphones in their speaker mode their battery is going drain in even faster. And we’ll get into speaker mode in a minute. But to charge these headphones up you just gotta throw them into their charging cradle… so at least they got that right.
Regarding bluetooth connectivity these headphones are rocking bluetooth 4.2 and they have a hero and sidekick set up. So one ear cup, in this case the right ear cup connects to your phone the hero and relays that connection to the left ear cup the side kick. Technically you can use the right ear cup by itself cause if the left ear cup is too far away from the right ear cup it automatically disconnects.
Now performance wise these headphones have a very noticeable audio delay when watching youtube videos on both iPhone and android devices. But to my surprise they don’t have any latency when watching Netflix on an iPhone. But still their wireless connectivity isn’t super stable cause the audio will frequently cut in and out even if you’re sitting at your desk and your phone is literately one foot away from the hero ear cup with zero obstructions.
But now you may be wondering, how do these headphones sound… simply said they sound awful. But technically speaking, these headphones sound very shallow, their mids are buried below by all their bass and their tinny highs. The bass on these headphones also constantly bottoms out even at lower volumes so all you hear is spurting even in not so bass heavy music. But you can also clearly tell that the human headphones have an active EQ that’s constantly adjusting the bass on these headphones to help prevent all of that spurting… but its still there. So all you really hear are the mids and vocals constantly moving back and fourth. And like I mentioned earlier, these headphones don’t create a seal so sound leakage is a huge problem.
So if you were planing on getting these headphones to use at the office lets just hope your music tastes aligns with that of your coworkers. But to control your music playback both ear cups have touch pads with very reminiscent touch controls. You can single tap to play or pause, swipe front or back to skip through your music and swipe up or down to adjust your volume. It works, but it is a little janky and its definitely not as easy to use as the touch pads found on Bose’s and Sony’s headphones. Even touch pads on truly wireless earbuds are easier to use than these.
But like I mentioned earlier, these headphones also have a speaker mode. You can clasp them together and go from headphone mode to speaker more to fill a room with music… but like mentioned earlier, since the human headphones sound bad in headphone mode they also sound bad in speaker mode.
So yeah like I mentioned earlier these headphones just sound very shallow, mids just are non existent. But maybe you can use them to listen to podcasts with…
But another feature the human headphones tout is their ability to be used as a translator. And personally I think using their translation feature while in speaker mode is pretty neat.
So that’s pretty cool, you set one touch surface as one language and set the other touch surface as the other language. But still theres nothing inherently special here cause you can do the same thing with an app on your phone. (except pay taxes) This is google pixel buds all over again.
But finally lets talk about the microphones on these headphones. For starters to my surprise phone calls come in though both ear cups which is good to see cause most earbuds that use a hero and sidekick set up phone calls only come in through the hero… and the microphone on these guys is awful.
But with all that being said, I can’t recommend getting the Human Headphones at all. They’er too good to be true. They don’t perform as well as earbuds and they’re not more convenient to carry around than headphones cause they aren’t going to fit in your pocket. Their real world battery life performance is nowhere near their advertised 9 hours, they just sound bad, and they’re not all that comfortable. Maybe the Human Headphones are the future of headphones who knows, but in their current state the Human Headphones are an alpha product. If you’re looking for earbud or headphones recommendations please click on the I Icon above or in the description below.