Soundcore by Anker Life A3i Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds, Bluetooth 5.2, Hybrid ANC, Deep Bass, AI-Enhanced Calls with 6 Mics, 40H Playtime, Fast Charging, 22 Custom EQ, Transparency Mode

I got these hoping for literally any noise reduction at all during construction in our apartment building, right upstairs. I do have some Sony over-ear noise cancelling headphones that are kind of unreal, how good they are, but there's a problem, I have some fairly serious issues with jaw tension and the nerves in my jaw and face, and wearing the over-ear ones for long periods of time causes the pain to flare up really badly, so I wasn't going to be able to rely solely on those.I got them hoping, but not expecting. I was very pleasantly surprised.Now, a caveat - I seem to have fairly large ear canals, and so as a standard practice, I pop on some large memory foam eartips on literally all in-ear headphones I get, so they'll actually stay in my dang ears, and it also adds a level of noise isolation, too. (I mean, they're basically foam earplugs with holes for the headphones, after all.) I have tried these earbuds with the silicone tips they come with, and they still do a surprisingly good job, but if you really want the best performance out of these, buy yourself some memory foam eartips to go with them. (The ones I have that fit accommodate earbud tips between 4.5mm and 5.6mm.) The only downside is you're going to need a little bag for them and the teeny tiny little charging case (seriously, it's so small), because with the foam eartips on, they do NOT fit properly into the charging case to make a connection.Battery life is surprisingly good for tiny little things like this. I'm afraid I don't have a proper hour measure, I've not worn them out to 0% yet when I'm wearing them.One thing I'll say is that the sound is VERY bass heavy, to me. However, I'm fairly biased, as my usual headphones (other than those over-ear Sonys) are all in-ear monitors that are 'tuned' to have a flatter response than most of the 'average' headphones out there, so this is probably closer to how most headphones these days are tuned, really, and it's just all in what you expect. Still, it's startling to me, at least.Now, how is this impressive noise cancelling, really? Is it as good as the over-ears? No. No it isn't, but I didn't expect that, especially at this price point. Those other headphones, those are $300. These were $45. Obviously there's going to be a difference. Things that the expensive ones will mute to all but entirely silent, if not silent, ARE audible with these. However, it makes everything very surprisingly quieter. Louder noises sound "farther away". It even managed to make the banging of the construction upstairs sound fainter and further away than the earplugs alone, so it's not purely those memory foam tips carrying the entire weight. In fact, I found when I tried wearing these out, to listen to something at the grocery store, it was unnervingly good at muffling everything. I ended up swapping over to the included silicone tips there, because they did let in a little more of the sound around me and it didn't feel quite so odd!To sum these up: If you're comparing these to expensive, high end headphones with active noise cancellation, as long as you're aware that this is a totally different price bracket, I think you'll be quite pleasantly surprised how well these tiny little things somehow manage to compete in terms of noise cancellation. If you're willing to carry everything in a little case or bag, adding memory foam eartips makes it even better. They're bass-forward sound, and I wouldn't say they're the best sound of anything I've ever used, but that's not why you're buying noise cancelling earbuds, really, is it? You want something adequate in the sound department, above average in noise cancellation, and generally punching above its price class, right? If so, that's these.

I wanted Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) earbuds that:- had hardware switches, or were hardwired- did not have microphones (but apparently this is impossible, for some alien reason to me)- did not require me to download a shitty app to use the ANCThere are not very many ANC earbud choices that are hardwired, and the longevity of those also seems questionable for *several* times the price. There are some cheap wired ones that *claim* ANC, but I don't know if I actually trust them (...some are clearly just passive sound dampening and lying... some I am unsure.)When it comes to wireless ANC earbuds, most have touch controls. Even the ridiculously expensive ones. This filtered out most choices.Of "hardware switch ANC earbuds," I hadn't found any other wireless ANC earbud that doesn't *require* you to download their shitty app to turn on the ANC. This is a dealbreaker for me....So this was the *only* choice.That it's affordable certainly doesn't hurt anything.On to reviewing the actual earbud.The battery life on these is good. I wear these nearly all day long, every single day, and I'll put them in the charger during short trips to the bathroom or similar, so they get a little intermittent recharge time. They last from when I get up to when I go to bed.I got these 9 months ago, and the battery has not seemed significantly different despite literal constant daily use. Have not noticed any other degradations.The hardware switches system is very intuitive, and works without any app installation. You can turn on and off ANC, up and lower volume, and even skipping songs works. It's easy for me to remember and very fluid. I like this.The fit is good for me. A note is that the type of "silicone tips" these use are the type that irritate my ears (maybe a plastic hybrid silicone? Sigh, just use regular silicone please,) so I swapped out the tips for some spares. This has worked wonderfully.The ANC is sufficient for my needs. I have a neighbor who is constantly running some kind of bloody obnoxious noise machine 24/7. It makes a deep bass sound and vibrates the walls. I can't hear it at all with these in. It cuts out all neighbors' apartment noises, such as them screaming at their equally screaming kids all day long. I wouldn't survive the summer without these, while it does not cut out the old crappy air conditioner noise completely, it neutralizes it to the point that I am not actively being driven insane, and closing my room door makes it silent.It doesn't handle "sharp" sounds very well-- suddenly revving cars, dishes clattering. It does dampen some, but if it's loud and sudden enough it makes an almost disorienting balance effect. It has to be fairly extreme for the disorienting "lopsided effect" to happen, such as loud sports car drivers who consider "a quiet area" some kind of direct challenge to their ego, that try to split the sky open with their removed mufflers and noise "enhancements."There are some interesting quirks with these.One is that when I connect to my computer for the first time automatically, it will usually pick a sound volume and will not budge until forcibly disconnected and reconnected. Usually this sound is very quiet, so easy to notice, and easy enough to fix, but weird.I only have this issue with my computer, so it probably has something to do with Linux Mint's new bluetooth driver, specifically, blueman-manager. This issue is not present on (Linux) Steam Deck, my mp3 player, *or* my laptop Linux Mint running blueberry instead of blueman.These have an issue where they desync, and they will not resync themselves. You have to manually disconnect and reconnect them. This has happened on all devices I have tried them on (except my laptop, but that's possibly due to less usage testing.) This is not a very big issue for most of them, (maybe a single restart in a session, usually zero,) but it seems like on my PC some specific video games + Discord REALLY do not like these. As an example, Satisfactory + Discord desyncs these so much that I have to restart them, like, every half hour. I'll still use these over hardwired because it drives me less insane than the neighbor noise, but eesh.The "low battery" voice will absolutely jumpscare you, it's way too loud. Often you can tell when it is starting to get low, because they start to misbehave (more constant desyncs, odd behaviour like an earbud dropping for a second,) so it's ...sort of avoidable.I don't think the bluetooth connection is super strong, but if you are parked in the same room, it's extremely consistent.I will buy these for as long as they fulfill requirements and as long as we live in a world where noise pollution is the norm. I am incredibly noise sensitive with incredibly good hearing, and these make my life livable in a city. Autistic person approved (me.)