I’ve lived with the Bragi Dash “truly wireless” earbuds for about a month now. They are the first “truly wireless” earbuds on the market. What does that mean, exactly? Well, they have no wires. They are simply two separate buds with a charging dock. Should you buy this unique listening experience for $300? You might want to read further before making that leap.

How Are They Truly Wireless?

The Bragi Dash (to be referred to as “Dash” from now on) are wireless in a unique way. They use Bluetooth to connect your phone to the right earbud, and the right connects to the left earbud. In my opinion, this is a strange way to connect them, and it only works some of the time.

The Dash certainly do have “connectivity issues”. Being truly wireless is hard; syncing up audio from two separate earbuds with no wires is almost impossible without some crazy method. The 3-tier method they use causes a lot of interruptions in audio on a daily, if not hourly, basis. By the time your day is over, you kind of want to chuck these things in water somewhere. They are only waterproof for up to 1-meter, however; so make sure it isn’t just a water fountain!

On a more serious note, they cause bouts of frustration from constantly interrupted audio if the right earbud is too far away from your phone. You have to keep your phone on the right side, and at least 4 feet within the range of the buds, to have a decent listening experience. Sometimes, even that doesn’t work. At times, you have to take them out and put them in their charging cradle to reset their connection. In short, it isn’t the best implementation of the connection process.

Setup Issues

When you first take these out of the box, you are required to charge them for at least 2 hours before using them. Mine came with no charge, so skipping this wasn’t an option. For such a small battery, taking two hours to charge is outrageous. The software update process also takes an additional two hours. The updates did help better the experience a little, but not quite enough.

They charge by inserting them into their cradle, which holds them in magnetically. The one good thing I will say is that they do have a strong magnet in there. I’ve shaken them an extreme amount to test their bond, and they just won’t come out unless you want them to. The Dash connect to the cradle via gold pins. I’m assuming this is why they take so long to charge. My suggestion, if you even buy these, is to charge up the cradle via a high amp charger of some sort. I would suggest at least 2 amps. Having plugged mine into a Samsung Fast Charger, the charging time is significantly improved.

Materials

If a company ever got a carrying cradle right, it would be Bragi. The Dash’s cradle and it’s cover are made completely of aluminum. Not coated, but solid machined aluminum. For $300, I wouldn’t expect any less. It is nice that they thought about the durability of the product and its protection. The cover is so thick that it makes the Dash heavy. It’s not terribly heavy, but enough to notice. It does feel solid, which I like better than cheap plasticfeeling. Samsung is going to have a lot to prove when it comes to beating the Bragi Dash in durability and build quality.

Bragi Dash Cradle
Bragi Dash Cradle

 

How Do The Dash Sound?

What good are headphones if they don’t sound good? No good. I can confidently tell you that this is not a $300 quality listening experience. You can do far better for way less money. It’s sad to say, but it seems as if Bragi aimed too high, too soon. Trying to be the first to the market really made the sound quality suffer. Also, being truly wireless does have it’s audio driver limitations. The Dash are fairly small, and that causes the listening experience to be lackluster at best. I think my $20 pair of wired headphones from Amazon sound as good as the Dash. Yikes!

Final Thoughts

I wouldn’t recommend buying these. I know that sounds harsh, but they just aren’t worth $300. They probably aren’t even worth $50 with the sound quality they give. You’re basically paying for build quality and the right to say you have truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds. I would suggest going out and buying a good quality set of headphones or really great Bluetooth earbuds. You’ll pay way less for or a better audio experience. If you want to really go wireless, I would say wait and see what Samsung brings to the table later this year. They have the resources to possibly make the wireless experience smoother; and for them to work 100% of the time!

Let me know what you think about truly wireless earbuds below. Do you think they are the next big thing, or would you keep the corded connection for the sake of quality? I’d have to go with the latter.

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