Last year, Apple announced the AirPods and set in motion a massive wave of other “truly wireless” headphones. While a few others existed before, there has been a huge influx of AirPod competitors, all fighting for your precious pocket space, and the prized spot as your go-to earbuds.
Overview:
The Smartomi Ace Wireless Earbuds ($49.99 on Amazon) are compact wireless earbuds that fit snugly in your ear without looking gaudy, flashy, or obnoxious. Unlike Apple’s AirPods, the Ace are true in-ear buds, allowing them to deliver deeper bass and provide greater noise isolation.
The most important feature of any pair of headphones or earbuds is how they sound, and I was completely shocked at how good these $50 buds sound. At near max volumes, the Ace did have slight distortion, but between 40% and 80%, they offered full sound with solid bass, clear mids, and crisp (but not piercing) highs.
From a fit standpoint, the Ace sit in your ear canal and the included rubber tips ensure a great seal, which helps in delivering the full sound, and also helps keep external noise out. The body of each Ace is also very compact, less and 1/2” thick, and no larger than a nickel around. While many competitors clock in at near walnut size, while these are closer to acorn size.
In my personal testing, I did find the Ace to be a little uncomfortable for long periods of time, but every ear is different. If the AirPods or EarPods don’t fit your ears well, odds are these might be just what you need.
The final component of the Smartomi Ace to consider is connectivity and control. Pairing the earbuds is fairly easy. Remove both from the charging case, press the multi-function button on both, and they will connect with one another, then appear on your devices Bluetooth list for pairing. After you have successfully paired them to each other and your device once, any time in the future when you remove both from the case, they will connect to each other and your device automatically.
Once connected, clicking the button on either Ace earbud will pause or play your music, podcast, or other media. Activating Siri (or other device assistant) can only be done via the left earbud with a long press on the button. Audio from Siri (or other assistant) and phone calls are also limited to the left earbud only, which I have noted was a huge frustration with another pair of fully wireless earbuds.
Phone call audio was also occasionally frustrating, due to the way the microphone is placed on the earbud. Even slightly noisy environments or calls in moderately windy areas resulted in the person on the other end asking me to repeat myself more than once. When listening to music or podcasts, on more than 1 occasion, the right earbud would drop out briefly. This is presumably due to the way the left earbud relays audio from the phone to the right earbud, but when my phone is within 3 feet of the earbuds, it’s annoying and seems like a design flaw.
Verdict:
Rating: 3.5/5
Overall, the Smartomi Ace truly wireless earbuds sound good, isolate outside noise, and are very affordable. They aren’t great for phone calls or interacting with Siri, especially in areas with background noise. The battery case is a little bulky for some pockets, but offers multiple recharges for the earbuds on a single charge of the case. Connectivity isn’t bad, but physical or electrical interference may cause occasional drops in sound on one or both earbuds.
Pros
- Isolates outside noise
- Solid, full sound
- Good battery life
- Incredibly small
- Good price
Cons
- Mediocre microphone quality
- Occasional flaky connectivity
- Can get uncomfortable after extended use
If you’re in the market for truly wireless earbuds, but don’t want to spend the money on AirPods or find that Apple’s earbuds don’t quite fit your ears, the Smartomi Ace are a great option. Check them out today, only $50 on Amazon.