With all the negative buzz surrounding the removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and Samsung also mulling over doing the same thing, wireless headphones are looking like they are about to become the standard after 100 years of using a plug. Rowkin seems to understand this and has been making a big push with their full line of incredibly small wireless earbuds. The company sent us over a set of their ‘Bit Stereo’ wireless earbuds to take for a spin, and after putting them through their paces for the past week we have some thoughts.
Overall the Bit Stereo Wireless Earbuds are a fantastic piece of kit, but they fall just short of being great. But let’s start off with some specs on these little earbuds. These little buggers are amazingly small with the earbuds themselves measuring in at 0.55″(D) x 0.82″ (L) with the charger that serves as a portable dock where they call home coming in at 0.75″(D) x 3.19″(L). It’s a sleek little tube design that fits even into the smallest of bags or purses.
Each earbud weighs in at a minuscule 0.18oz each which means they are so light that you may even forgot you are weraing them. Luckliy they come with some extras rubber nubs so you’ll be able to get the perfect fit and these little buds won’t fall about, even during a decent workout. As these are wireless the battery life is important and the
earbuds sport a 55mAh battery with the portable charging case coming in at 250mAh. Not huge (about 3 hours), but they should last you a few trips back and forth from work on the bus/train. The only battery issue isn’t with the battery itself, but with how you charge the, well, charger. You have to pull the tube apart and plug in a mini USB cable which is fine, but this means you can’t charge the tube and both headphones at the same time. It’s a weird design choice to be sure and one that shows they wanted style over function. Rowkin has also implemented Bluetooth 4.1 into these, but this is something that I’ll touch upon a little later.
Rowkin should be commended for creating a really gorgeous piece of kit with these earbuds. Every time someone saw them on my desk or noticed them while wandering around, they asked about them. The portable charging tube is also really neat and keeps the earbuds safe while looking sharp. My biggest concern was with losing the earbuds or the small charger around my cluttered office, but this didn’t happen as Rowkin has added a magnetic feature so the earbuds stay in place with the charger. The tube charger itself is also magnetic so is attaches really nicely to my metal office tray to easy storage.
The Bit Stereo also feature a mic so you can take calls or use Siri without needed to grab your phone. The call quality is fair, but I found it not quite as good as the music side of things. It’s also limited to a single earbud which is a little weird. The WaterSafe nano coating technology also means the earbuds are sweatproof, water resistant, and rated at IPX5 waterproof. This means they work great for the gym, running, biking, hiking, exercising, and any other activity. Or so you would think. They are bloody good headphones with great sound replication and decent depth, but the Bluetooth is what nearly kills the unit.
If my phone is on my desk everything is lovely and I can move about my office and even into nearby rooms without losing connection. They also worked splendidly while in my home gym working on my boxing routine. My schedule stinks so I often do this really late at night, and wired headphone just don’t really work here, and blasting music would piss of my neighbors. With the Bit Stereo Wireless Earbuds this wasn’t an issue and I found myself having much better and longer workouts in peace.
But where they really screw the pooch is when going out for a run. I’m one of those super cool people that wear a fanny pack filled with all my stuff while out running with my dog, and I toss my phone in it along with everything else. This was simply too much as the earbuds kept losing connection every few seconds while out. This was really strange as my pack is very thin and only a few feet from the earbuds. I figured they were low on power, but every time I tried them over the week they failed to keep a connection. Perhaps it’s the bouncing about with my phone, but it really stinks whatever the case.
I did mange to figure things out with a weird fix by weeks end. If I held my phone on my left side (closer to the main earbud) and held the phone just right while running, drops would be limited, but this isn’t ideal. It almost feels like a step backwards for Bluetooth and I dare to think that these earbuds are using some sort of line-of-sight Bluetooth to keep a connection. Rowkin needs to do some work in this regard, but I’d assume if you had an armband to run with it wouldn’t be so bad as the phone would be closer to the ear. Still, Amazon reviews are littered with connection issues that people are having in various settings.
The Rowkin Bit Stereo wireless earbuds are so close to being great that it hurts, but if you understand some of their minor limitations they are lovely little things. They feature great sound, a clean style decent battery life, and if you are looking for a good pair of wireless earbuds that you can hide while at work (don’t blame me if you get caught) these are a good choice, especially for just under $120 on Amazon.
3.5/5
“Good”
"A Unit Was Provided For Review"
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