Share TechieGuy's profile
 
Facebook Twitter
 
 
TechieGuy
 
 
 
TechieGuy's stats
 
  • Review count
    1
  • Helpfulness votes
    282
  • First review
    April 3, 2017
  • Last review
    April 3, 2017
  • Featured reviews
    0
  • Average rating
    1
 
Reviews comments
  • Review comment count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First review comment
    None
  • Last review comment
    None
  • Featured review comments
    0
 
Questions
  • Question count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First question
    None
  • Last question
    None
  • Featured questions
    0
 
Answers
  • Answer count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First answer
    None
  • Last answer
    None
  • Featured answers
    0
  • Best answers
    0
 
 
TechieGuy's Reviews
 
Listen to your favorite playlists with these Epic Air wireless earbuds. The special earhook delivers a precise fit to prevent slipping during intense workouts, and the touch-and-tap controls let you skip forward or back as needed. These Epic Air wireless earbuds come with a convenient charging case for storage and transport.
 
  • My Best Buy® Elite Plus Member
Customer Rating
1 out of 5
1
Disappointed in the JLab Epic Air
on April 3, 2017
Posted by: TechieGuy
I wanted to love this product so much. Prior to purchasing the JLab Epic Air, I read online reviews on Best Buy, also watched couple of YouTube videos. Finally, I wrote the company directly about the issues that were being reported. They told me, "Best Buy reviews are at a 3.7 which is far from poor. Also to that point, happy people rarely write a review because they got what they expected". With the reply from the company, I proceeded to order the product from Best Buy online. It was delivered on March 30, 2017. Now this is where I found myself reporting on issues...
Issues with the earbuds
1. Can take up to >15 seconds or more to connect to the phone's Bluetooth after you turn them on
2. Every time you turn on the earbuds they have problems with working without cutting off within the first minute of operation.
3. Poor connection between the two earbuds, there tend to be dropping in the connection between them.
4. Short Bluetooth Connection - after 10 feet start to experience break-out from the phone while playing music. Thus, unable to get that 30 feet away from device claim. There are no walls or drywall between the phone and the individual (in this case me) wearing the headphones.
5. Slight skip of music whenever I pick up the phone. Basically, this creates random drops with the earbuds.
6. The headphone keeps saying goodbye without indicating what is causing it to shutoff. Basically, it is shutting off by itself.
7. Stop streaming music while it shows Bluetooth is still connected. Normally have to turn off the headphones to reconnect again.
8. Unlocking your phone while music is playing produce slight skipping <2sec of headphones (you can hear it trying to reconnect to each other).
9. Sometimes increasing the volume generate a skipping (referencing to earbuds cutting in and out creating distortion in the sound) of the music being played on the earbuds.
10. Removing one of earbud from your ears tend to cause cutting out of the music being played. Note that this is not all the time, and is not as frequent as the other reported issues. The observation often time happens whenever the left earbud is removed and placed back into the ear.
11. Remove the right earbud sometimes lower the volume slight on the left (this is only temporarily, and it eventually returns to the right level).
12. Observed that the earbuds may cut out/in whenever the next song is about to start. This creates an annoyance since it degrades the experience of listening to the music.
13. Connecting the second earbud if the first was playing the announcement about "Earbud joins" is VERY loud in proportion to the music volume playing at the time.
14. Whenever you stop/pause a playing song, the Epic Air has “white” noise instead of going silent. Put another way, you can create slight background faded noise being generated by the earbuds.
15. Problem playing WhatsApp recording on the earbuds. It doesn’t play the recording without music being played in the background. If you press play for the WhatsApp recording message, the earbuds does not stream it automatically. So, you have to then press the pause/play directly on the earbuds and then you will hear the message being played over the music in the background.

Troubleshooting the device
Personally I've been doing several different troubleshooting activities with the device. See some of the items from the list below:
1. Unpaired the device, and restarting the pairing with different earbud being the main one
2. Change the main side of the earbud - R to L
3. Turning on the R earbud first before the L (in this case the L was the dominant one)
4. Placing the phone close proximity between the earbuds
5. Charge the case to 100% (all lights are shown)
6. Fully charged earbuds - message is that the earbuds are full which according to the manual means 100%
7. The Smartphone has no other Bluetooth devices connected to it. There is no Smartwatch connected to the phone.
8. Try turning off WiFi signal while operating the Bluetooth earbud headphones. Note this was only done as a way to isolate the above issues, however, I still had issues with them.
9. Disabled NFC on the phone to limit any form of interference (even though this isn’t practical, but did it anyway as a means of isolation)
10. Fully charge the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 to 100% of battery
11. Connected the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 to a power outlet during one the test experience
12. Restarted the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 after pairing the Epic Air
13. Closed all running apps with the exception of the music app that is required to play the songs for testing
14. Tried multiple music playing apps (i.e., Amazon Prime Music, TuneIn Radio, Spotify). Regardless of the music player, still had the issues as reported
I was using a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 with the latest OS and security patch.
It is important to know that I do like several things about the device, and wish to get a proper working model.
1. Light weight design
2. Comfortable fit, and fits securely in both ears
3. Great isolation of background noise (this is a super plus for enjoying the earbuds)
4. Lots of bass which produce richer sounding music
5. High volume, normally other wireless headphones are weak in this area
6. Single charge battery life of 7hrs (I would like to know the standby battery life though)
7. Carrying case with ability four full charges of the headphones
Design improvements
1. JLab Epic Air only allow to hear from one earbud during phone calls. This is not the best experience since it revert the call to monotone instead of producing digital quality
2. Extremely sensitive touch controls. Trouble placing earbuds into ears without play/skip controls being touched in accident
Bottom line, after calling JLab Support they told me couple of things. First, it should be expected to get skipping from the product. It was normal for the RF signal to cut out. Second, they were not able to validate all my issues, which may be related to Bluetooth or the RF signal used on the device. Finally, they told me that the device was out of stock as it relates to any type of replacement. They said if I wanted to send it back to them, then I would have to wait, since there wouldn't be one for replacement. In the end, my decision was to return the product to Best Buy.
Conclusion, I wanted to love this product so much. It offered a lot that I wanted from a total wireless device. However, in my observation, the delivery fall short. To hear someone from the company inform me that I should expect cut out and skips from the device was totally a disappointment in my mind.
My Best Buy number: 2987109233
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+241points
282of 323voted this as helpful.
 
TechieGuy's Review Comments
 
TechieGuy has not submitted comments on any reviews.
 
TechieGuy's Questions
 
TechieGuy has not submitted any questions.
 
TechieGuy's Answers
 
TechieGuy has not submitted any answers.