Google announced the second-generation Pixel Buds way back in October of last year, but only the white color was first made available to consumers in late April of this year. The three other colors — black, orange, and mint — were just released this month. I’d been wanting a pair of these ever since they were announced last year to replace my current pair of 2018 Samsung Gear IconX earbuds. So, as soon as the “Almost Black” variant was made available this past week, I splurged at bought a pair. Unfortunately, the quality control (QC) issues are real, and I’ll be returning mine.
My black Pixel Buds arrived yesterday and right out of the box they were running firmware v296 and had issues. Almost exactly every 1 minute and 50 seconds, there’s a brief audio cut, even when the Pixel 2 XL is right in my hands. There’s also a slight hiss/static noise just before playback and for a few seconds after playback. It does continue throughout playback, but it’s only noticeable with quiet music and quiet environments. Both of these issues still persisted even after the buds updated to the recently released v550 firmware which Google said was supposed to fix it.
Now, I did hear about the QC issues before purchasing the Pixel Buds, but I felt it might have been just a small number of users and Google might have fixed them with the release of the other colors. I also partly just wanted to try my luck to see if I got a good pair.
Well, it turns out, I did not. Even just looking across Reddit and the Community Forums, they’re just littered with posts from users experiencing the same exact issues, especially the 1:50 audio cuts. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any users who don’t have a perfect pair of Pixel Buds, but when a significant amount of users are having the same exact issue, that should be enough to know that something isn’t quite right.
I’m not entirely sure if it’s a hardware or software issue (or both), but, at this point, Google really should just do a product recall or a hardware revision because there seem to be far too many people experiencing the same issues. I’m also not really sure why they even released the other colors if the issues weren’t addressed in the first place. Google said firmware v550 was supposed to fix it, and before that, they said v296 was supposed to fix it too.
I’ve been using my 2018 Gear IconXs for roughly two years now, and even they don’t have any audio cuts or hissing like the Pixel Buds. However, the left bud in them is significantly quieter than the right buds, but this has only started since the past few months.
How the Pixel Buds’ issues got through QA is mind boggling. I really wanted to like these because everything else is great about them — the software integration is done well and the fit in my ear is perfect — but the audio cuts are too much of an issue that I’m going to be returing them. At $180, they really shouldn’t be having these problems. Maybe I’ll repurchase them again in a few months if it’s fixed in a couple months and QC reports are better then with a new batch, but for now, these are a no-go. Google and Bluetooth just never seem to be friends.
