Wireless freedom, why you should choose Bluetooth audio
It still feels like something of a revelation to enjoy music wirelessly, we turn on, tune in and enjoy. No wires, no worries, no accidentally cutting off your song prematurely because of a tug on the cord. We have the will, and in today’s devices and wireless audio equipment, we certainly have the means.
The way we are able to make almost all devices wireless now is that nearly all devices have Bluetooth connectivity as standard, and that is important when it comes to wireless headphones and earphones. When we think about Bluetooth, perhaps our thoughts go straight to headphones, but in-ear earphones have been catching up fast, due to their popularity for sports and fitness where a larger set of headphones just aren’t practical.
Bluetooth is ideal for personal audio, with a range of up to 32 feet, excellent energy efficiency and support across virtually all mobile devices and other sound equipment. But it doesn’t end there, there is much more to it than that.
Farewell to the headphone jack?
Perhaps the day is not too far away when the beloved (or dreaded, depending on your personal point of view) headphone jack disappears in the same way as VHS, audio cassettes and floppy disk drives. But for now, at least a vast majority of mobile devices still have the trusty 3.5mm headphone jack or equivalent, depending on your brand of the device. However, the move to kill off the headphone jack is already gathering momentum and that is the driving force behind Bluetooth’s ever-increasing rate of improvement.
Is Bluetooth the only option for wireless audio?
There are older forms of wireless technology still in use today; namely infrared and radio frequency. These are mainly used for TV and require the use of a separate transmitter, they do their job well and boast a much longer range than Bluetooth but they are prone to interference and lack the security that comes with that tiny Bluetooth icon. More and more televisions come with Bluetooth as standard which has exciting implications for music streaming and gaming.
Sound quality
One of the most common questions for those considering the switch to wireless headphones and Bluetooth in-ear headphones is that of sound quality. To understand a little more about that you need look no further than the issue of audio codecs. A codec is a small piece of software that performs two important tasks; firstly, it encodes your sounds at one end then swiftly decodes the signal at the other end. The SBC codec is the current industry standard, allowing for very high-quality stereo audio and is used across the Panasonic range of in-ear headphones and Bluetooth over-ear headphones.
Battery life
Bluetooth headphones, unlike their wired counterparts, need a power source and that comes in the form of onboard rechargeable batteries. Here Bluetooth over-ear headphones have an advantage as they have the real estate to house a considerable battery. Generally, in-ear headphones have a shorter battery life due to their much smaller size. That said, you can expect up to eight hours playback from a fully charged pair of in-ear headphones and around three times that from over-ear headphones. Charging them soon becomes second nature, much like charging your phone and many have the back-up option of a wired cable to provide a temporary fix.
Pairing up
Your device and your Bluetooth headphones need to be able to talk to each other, reliably and securely; the pairing process achieves this. Think of it as a formal introduction before becoming the best of friends. Locate the Bluetooth settings on your device, activate the Bluetooth headphones and simply enter a one-off code. Some devices offer NFC pairing to speed up the process with a simple tap together of both the NFC enabled device and headphones.
With a wide range of styles for every aspect of life, from lounging to commuting to putting in the hours at the gym, Bluetooth headphones and in-ear earphones are just too convenient and too much of a leap forwards to ever turn back to wired. They are here to stay and they’re the future, if you haven’t jumped on board and freed yourself from those wired connections, perhaps now is the time. The world of wireless audio awaits!