Skullcandy Sesh Evo True Wireless In-Ear Earbud – True Black

Update#1: charging case failed after 3 days- returning for exchange
1st review:
Longer battery life, can use either bud by itself- a REAL UPGRADE!
Arrived charged up and ready to go- nice surprise.
Paired right away
Has longer battery life- will update review once I get some real-life battery use and times
CAN USE either bud by itself- I listen mostly to podcasts, this is awesome!
Seals out ambient noise well,( I use with weed wacker) with the supplied ear seals
Has “EQ” modes easily accessed
Better than other units which cost 3 times more!

****** NOTE THAT THE CHARGING CASE FAILED AFTER THREE DAYS- returning for exchange.
another update
The exchanged unit is working well after 4 weeks- 4 star rating, will update if these continue to provide good results..or bad!

+++++++++ Buds left in the charging case may turn on and run down the battery, then recharge…depleting the charging case in a 1/2 day- this may also cause audio problem as the BT interrupts wired headphone use
Once charged, remove from case and manually turn off until needed- update…buds turned OFF and sitting on the table have turned on and attempted to pair- running down the battery- it has also happened that buds torned OFF have turned on interrupting iphone audio through wired buds- have to remember to turn iphone bluetooth off.
– if using 1 bud while the other is charging, the bud on the charger may cycle on and off and that may cause your connection to drop and reconnect ( audio intermittent) with the bud in your ear OR with wired earbuds!

I think this and charge case issues may be the reason why these have limited availability at amazon or skullcandy website- watch for a version 2 ….!?

Update 5: after about 5 or 6 weeks the battery life is declining- the left seems to be about 4 hours, the right is about 2 hours use… they were closer to 5 hours when new
Update 6: battery life is reduced- this could be associated with the above buds turning themselves on

the bluetooth has been quite good —when it works— with range of 50′ not unusual

Update 7: buds, FULLY charged and manually turned off and left for 48 hours- on power up showed 1/2 strength and turned off after 2 hours
These buds have great audio and bluetooth- the power/battery management in a mess.
I will be returning this set ( third set)

The case for these headphones is killed by “rapid” chargers, which Skullcandy defines as anything over 1.5 amps! I looked through all my old chargers and they were all 2.0A and above. I had this plugged into a Anker IQ charger and after a few minutes the case stopped working. I contacted support and they told me the following:

“Please note we recommend only charging with a computer or with a wall adapter with only 1.1-1.5 amps. Never use an Apple adapter, rapid charger, or car charger.”
“I kindly advise that you plug your case into a computer or a laptop for the best charge”

I then asked:
“can you really not use a rapid charger with this? That is insane to me since every single wall charger and battery pack you get these days is rapid”

with the response:
“The rapid charger will not charge the product properly, just like an apple wall adpater it will either kill the battery or you will receive no response from it”

They sound good and all but after one charge battery completely dies and isn’t able to charge anymore not worth the money

I have always stayed away from wireless headphones because, historically, the batteries have not been fantastic and connecting to them has always been a hassle for me. These remove both of those problems. Pairing is insanely simple and can be done usually with just one click after your initial setup and the batteries last around 5 hours between charges, more than long enough for any normal every day user.

Range is impressive too, while the headphones claim they can connect over 30ft I have managed to get connected from over 40, more than enough to connect from another room or sometimes even floor.

The charging case uses USB C and can fully charge in a very short time. Compared to some other charging cases I’ve seen, it is slightly larger, but its impressive battery capacity and the inclusion of USB C more than makes up for that.

Sound quality is comparable to a pair in-ear headphones that might come bundled free with a mid-range phone and there is a quiet, but noticable hiss is present on lower volume tracks, though if you are using these out and about you wont even notice.

The two major downsides I’ve found to these is the audio lag, which ranges from 0.2-0.5 ms, (fine for listening to music but it can be a real problem for those planning to watch videos with these) and the user interface, which requires pushing fairly hard on physical buttons on the phones, and has some fairly unintuative shortcuts. I only use the buds to skip tracks, pause and take calls, anything else, I resort to doing on my smartphone, for fear of accidentally triggering the virtual assistant.

Aside from those small issues though, these are very solid little devices. I can look past the small issues though, as for the price and the convenience they offer, these are excellent little tools for those looking to finally get into wireless listening.

Update to my original review. Unfortunately shortly after I used just the right bud on its own for the first time (the ability to use just one bud is supposed to be a feature of these buds), the left bud stopped connecting, and now they won’t go into pairing mode at all, because they won’t sync to each other when you take them out of the case. I’ve followed all the instructions for returning to factory reset, and that makes no difference. So I’m in the act of asking for a refund.

I’m not the only person who has reported this – I don’t know whether there is just a faulty batch of buds, or there’s a software error causing this. I am suspecting the latter, because pairing to multiple devices is very fiddly, as I said in my original review, and it shouldn’t be. And, once you have used one bud singly, my phone/computer bluetooth menu, as well as the Sesh Evo connection, shows an apparently permanently connected device Sesh-Evo-LE (the left bud, presumably) that you cannot “Forget” and have to reboot to get rid of.

And, my first impressions (was four stars) . . .

I received an unexpected Amazon voucher, so decided to treat myself to these, because I’d read several good reviews. I already have a perfectly excellent pair of Bose over-ear bluetooth headphones, so didn’t really need these, but since they were effectively free, I decided to go for them.

I’m glad I did, because they are everything (and more) that I’d expect at this price point. Good sound, great fit, supplied with multiple sizes of ear plug (I have small ears and struggle with fit for in ear headphones), clear calls, good battery life, excellent appearance and feel.

So what’s not to like? Why only 4 starts overall?

They are fiddly to set up for more than one device, and also slightly fiddly to use with more than one device.

The first device is easy to pair, because the buds are ready to pair as soon as you take them out of the case. But they don’t come with written instructions for pairing another device, and the online help isn’t much help either – it seems to suggest that you need to “forget” the first pairing, reset the buds, then pair with the other device. This would be extremely tedious. Fortunately, that’s not the case. You can easily put them in pairing mode, but I had to watch the video on the help page, and spend a while trying various thing to find out how.

If you’ve read this far, and you do decide to buy these buds and want connect them to more than one device, when you get them, scan the QR code that comes with them (which takes you to the help pages), watch the help video, make notes or save the link because some of the information in the video isn’t written down elsewhere. Then read the rest of the help page. Most of the grief I had with pairing could have been avoided if clear pairing instructions were included in the box.

Anyway, to pair an additional device, you need to start with the buds off and not connected to anything. If you take them out of the case, they will automatically connect to one of the devices you have already paired (frustratingly, I think that may be the first device you paired, rather than the last device you used, but I’ve not confirmed that yet).

To turn them off, you can either go to the bluetooth menu for that device, and explicitly disconnect (you don’t need to forget the device, just disconnect) or touch and hold both buds for 6 seconds, and they will power off.

Then, touch and hold both buds for 4 seconds to put them into pairing mode (one light flashes red and blue). Now go to the device you want to pair, open the bluetooth menu, find the Sesh Evo buds and connect as normal.

At the time of writing, if you pair with multiple devices, I still find it a bit hit and miss as to which device connects straight out of the case, and, unlike my Bose headphones, they don’t tell you. They just say “Connected” but not to what.

And here’s the rub. If that’s not the device you wanted to connect to this time, you first have to find out which device it has connected to, go to the bluetooth menu of that device, disconnect, then go to the bluetooth menu of the device you want to connect to, and manually connect. These little buds only support one connection at a time, and you won’t be able to connect to a second device unless you have disconnected from the first.

If you want to use this with multiple devices, you will spend a lot of time in their respective bluetooth menus!