14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s highly-anticipated Surface Earbuds, which so many people refer to as the company’s AirPods killer, launched with a major setback that most of us didn’t see coming.
And it all comes down to how the pairing process working, which in its turn causes other problems that you’re about to learn about right now.
First and foremost, Engadget has found that Microsoft implemented an obsolete pairing method for the Surface Earbuds, which comes down to just one earbud actually pairing and connecting to your smartphone or laptop. This is the right one, so whenever you’re setting up the Surface Earbuds, only the right earbud is directly connected to your source device.
How does the left bud work? It relies on the information sent by the right one, which means it’s entirely dependent on it.
In other words, the left earbud can’t work without the right now, and by this point, you should already see where this is going.
The right earbud
This old pairing mode for the Surface Earbuds means you can’t use the left earbud without the right now, so if you want to stick with just one of them, this must be the right one. Many people use just one wireless earbuds for a wide variety of reasons, such as extra convenience when being in a group of people or simply because they want better awareness of what’s happening around.
But because of this weird pairing system that Microsoft decided to use for the Surface Headphones, only the right one can be used in such a scenario, as the left earbud would be disconnected automatically when it loses the connection signal.
One workaround could be just carrying the right earbud in your pocket, but again, it’s a solution to a problem that shouldn’t have been there from the very beginning.