Standing out is a sure way to bring excitement and, in the world of consumer tech, coming up with a new concept is a sure way to excite consumers and trump the competition! The Aipower Wearbuds is an exciting pair of truly wireless earbuds that utilizes a smartwatch as the charging case.
Wearbuds weighs 54 grams and comes with a silicone strap with a metal pin-and-tuck closure so, the longer section of the strap slides under the short section of the strap, as opposed to over it like with a classic pin buckle clasp watch.
Being made of silicone rubber, Wearbuds is comfortable to wear, gliding on the wrist skin without rubbing against it. Silicone rubber is also very durable, non-toxic, doesn't smell and won't cause an allergic reaction.
While the band is comfortable, Wearbuds is pretty bulky sticking out 2cm high above the wrist. The back of the case is not completely smooth because of the heart rate/ charging bump, although the bump has only a ~2mm protrusion.
Aipower Wearbuds does come in different colors but the watch band is one-size-fits-all. The short (12 o'clock) strap measures 4 inches long, while the long strap (6 o'clock) measures 6 inches long. The smallest wrist size the watch band can accommodate without the pin popping out is 12.5cm in circumference, which correspond to the second adjusting hole after the last hole in the watch band.
The Wearbuds watch band can be detached from the watch, although it doesn't come off as easy as with a quick release spring mechanism. Instead, you have to press down on a latch and pull in order to remove the watch band.
Because Wearbuds doesn't use a quick release spring bar mechanism, you won't be able to interchange watch bands with third-party ones. Aipower does sell replacement watch bands though, including black and mint colors, as well as replacements for the earbuds and charger cable.
When it's time to recharge the earbuds you simply insert them back in and push until you hear the click from the spring loaded mechanism. To take the earbuds out, you do the reverse by pushing the earbuds inwards until they pop out from the slots.
The Aipower Wearbuds watch is mainly made of hard plastic with chrome finish all-around, including the caseback, which integrates the heart rate sensor green led lights and magnetic charging contacts, which have a strong magnetic connection.
There is a small triangle cutout in between the charging contacts, which helps the charger plug to stay in place. Charging the Wearbuds watch takes 1.5 hours. The included 2 feet long cable charger is branded and proprietary of Aipower.
The slot for the earbuds is also made of hard plastic and integrates three metal pogo pins with L and R marking, which is important to pay attention to since inserting the earbuds in the wrong slot will cause the earbud to get jammed inside, making it difficult to pull out.
That said, Wearbuds is designed in such a way that the left earbud inserts in the left side of the watch, while the right earbud inserts in the right side of the watch, minimizing the possibility of wrong insertion.
The Aipower Wearbuds screen consists of a dome-shaped 0.96-inch 65K Color TFT LCD screen with 80 x 160 pixel resolution. The display is not brightly lit but it has a decent brightness level to be able to read the information on the display in broad daylight. The default (main) screen shows time (hours, minutes and AM or PM), day of the week, date (day and month) and battery level indicator.
Navigation is done by swiping on the display to access distance, floors (climbed), calories (kCal), latest hear rate (HR) bpm (beats per minute) and steps. There are two menus: Settings and About where you can access the serial number of the watch and firmware number. The display also shows an animation when you pop the earbuds in and out of the watch.
The same shiny chrome finish accent found on the watch is also present on the front panels of the earbuds, which feature a small status led and Aipower etching.
The earbuds touch control panels are responsive with good sensitivity that only requires subtle taps to control various functions including skipping tracks (forward/backwards), volume up/down, play/pause and calls (answer/end).
When using the earbud one at a time, the only functions supported are play/pause, skip forwards,volume up and calls (answer/end). With the earbuds inserted, Wearbuds has an IPX5 water resistance. The earbuds on their own have an IPX6 water resistance.
The Wearbuds earbuds have a lightweight (4 grams each), bullet-style footprint. The nozzle body of the earbuds has a rubberized hard plastic finish, integrating 6mm dynamic drivers and a MEMS microphone.
The earbuds also have a tiny rechargeable battery (35 mAh), which is capable of powering each earbud for 5 hours on 50% volume. The earbuds take 1 hour to fully charge from 0% to 100% and you can get 1 hour playback time from a quick 10 minute charge.
There are two bluetooth chips integrated in the Aipower Wearbuds, one of which is a bluetooth 5.0 chip inside the earbuds and the other is a bluetooth 4.2 chip inside the watch.
The earbuds bluetooth 5.0 chip (Qualcomm QCC3026) supports up to 15 meters wireless range and aptX, which not only means hi-resolution audio support but also less audio lag when streaming video via an Android device. There is no AAC codec support though; hence lag will be noticeable when streaming via an iOS device.
The Aipower Wearbuds watch weighs 50 grams (without the earbuds) and, it's powered by an ARM Cortex M4 processor, as well as three sensors (hear rate, barometer and 7-axis accelerometer, a vibration motor and a 160 mAh rechargeable battery.
The watch battery can recharge the earbuds one and half times. Battery life does depend on usage but you can expect to get up to 3 days of playtime if you use the earbuds a lot. When the watch battery is low, it will bring up a low battery animation on the screen. Heart rate monitoring cannot be disabled.
The Aipower Wearbuds tracks basic fitness activities and sleep and, it will display the information on the watch, although due to its small size it's worth downloading the companion Wearbuds app to view the data more conveniently as well as historical data.
Downloading the app is also needed in order to enable phone notifications, although you won't be able to read notifications from the watch. Before being able to link the watch to the app though, you will need to create an account.
Despite the ratings on the Google Play Store, the Wearbuds mobile app works well without any apparent issues. The app interface is easy to use and shows all the information that can be seen on the watch and more, including step goal (between 1000 and 60,000 steps) and sleep pattern.
From the app, you can also turn on and off sedentary reminder and "raise to wake", as well as change distance metrics (km or miles) and time format (24 h or 12 h). There is also a Find My Wearbuds function for finding the watch and five Watch Faces to choose from.
As well as pairing the watch with the Wearbuds app, you will also have to pair the earbuds to your phone in order to listen to audio.
The earbuds pair as two individual devices; hence the earbuds can work separate from each other. This also allows you to use the earbuds in mono mode, while keeping the other earbud inside the watch. There is a 3-second re-connection delay after taking the earbuds from the watch.
The audio performance is very good with loud volume, clean treble, and detailed midrange. Bass response is reasonable, although it depends on how good of a seal you can with the included one-size ear-tips, which are on the small side. The call quality is natural sounding with good amplification and minimized background noise.
There is no power function built-in to the Aipower Wearbuds; hence you cannot manually power on or power off the device. Once the display turns off (within 5 seconds), Wearbuds automatically goes into a low-power state (sleep mode) until you wake it up again by raising the wrist or swiping on the display.
Since Wearbuds cannot be turned off, there is no a standby mode that you typically get with electronic devices, allowing to extend battery life for longer. That said, being that Wearbuds is a smartwatch for everyday use, the lack of power on/off it's not likely to be a deal-breaker. You can buy the Aipower Wearbuds on amazon.