EarFun Free BT 5.0 wireless earbud review

November 1, 2019November 1, 2019 Paul E King 0 Comments Bluetooth 5, Truly Wireless

I didn’t expect to like the EarFun Free earbuds as much as I did. Having dealt with some above my pay grade audio equipment a $50 generic looking Bluetooth 5.0 set of earbuds in your standard charging coffin didn’t really excite me.

2019 11 01 08.51.10 - for some reason we don't have an alt tag here

I’m not going to say I’m blown away by these because I’m not. I’ve played with better, but those better earbuds had a price tag of about six times what the EarFun Free cost so put that in perspective. That said, they lack a little of the oomf I’m looking for in the bass side.

The lack of a configuration app for them does bother me a bit because I’m not sure where my lack of low oomf is coming from. They seem to fail to quite achieve the points I look for, but I feel like they might be able to given adequate software adjustment. I mean, I don’t require enough bass to make my teeth shake, but it feels like there’s little driving the low end.

I also can’t get it loud enough to hurt. I mean, you generally shouldn’t do this for safety reasons, but something I have been able to on some of the others.

Did I mention it’s $50?

I am … impressed

Let’s get onto the impressive – I can’t get the EarFun Free to cut out. No back pocket ear dropout, no across the room on a rack of servers and I’m behind a rack of switches drop outs. No loss of audio turning my head. I’m not sure if it’s the BT5, the particular protocol they’re using, or just better hardware antennas. I couldn’t ever detect dropout.

Booming while walking has been historically a rather annoying issue for me. These don’t have it. That said they also don’t seem to have the lower end. Probably not a requirement to get a complete er canal seal, or I’m using them wrong.

The battery life is about six hours per charge, the coffin carries four charges for a total of 24 additional hours. It reads like 5 minutes of charging gives you an hour or listening.

2019 11 01 12.11.00 - for some reason we don't have an alt tag here

You can recharge the coffin wirelessly. This means if you’re one of the Samsung 10 crowd you can charge your EarFun Free charger using wireless power sharing. I’m making no claims on this one, I can see it charges on a charging pad, but I’m sans Samsung 10 products until at least the Galaxy Note 13 at this rate.

And I am not…

The fit, not for me. They don’t hurt, but they’re not something I want in my ears over about an hour or two. This makes them great for workouts, not so great for workdays. At least with my ears. There are multiple tips I can try to fix this, but the tips don’t seem to do too much for me.

There are two buttons for these – left ear, right ear. There’s a number of button presses on each that does things. Either: 1 press = play, right 2 presses = assistant, etc. They’re in the book.

Getting assistant to trigger was tricky and annoying. Sometimes it worked with 2 presses, usually I just kept hitting it until it triggered. Every press pushed in on my ear, wasn’t a particularly great feeling. I’m not sure if they’re all inconsistent on Assistant triggering or it was just me.

I didn’t ever really feel the bass. This may be my ears, my set, whatever. But everything else was good.

No codecs are listed. Considering how many people have signs printed up saying “if it doesn’t have AptX it’s not for me!” I wonder what the deal is. Researching it looks a little like it doesn’t matter with anything Bluetooth 4.2 and up, but I’m actually out of my element here and need to do some research.

Is that a pebble?

EarFun Free profile

Interesting findings with the EarFun Free

You can use the right earpiece by itself, but not the left. It’s IPX7 waterproof, but don’t go diving with it as that’s IPX8. I am not entirely certain but it seems like six hours on a charge may be a low claim (I believe I was at 6:20-6:30 when it went).