After I switched to the Pixel 6 Pro a while back, I was surprised to find that my Pixel Buds 2 battery life had gotten absurdly short. The symptom: the left bud drains insanely fast. On my hour-and-a-half commute, by the time I got to work the left bud was down to 30% while the right was still at 97%. That’s not normal by any stretch. Then I had a brain fart and thought, well, I’ve been using these for over a year, and the similar cases I found online were all resolved by contacting Google for a replacement, so it’s gotta be the battery, right? I wasn’t counting on Google support — and even if I could reach them, this thing is out of warranty. So I went with the usual route: Taobao repair.

A lot of people want to buy “sleep plugs” — by which I mean earbuds that are comfortable when you lie on your side. Most people using them want to fall asleep to something: maybe a symphony, maybe rock, maybe Guo Degang, maybe a ghost story. In any case, it’s definitely not going to be ASMR. Of course, the two big requirements for sleep plugs are probably just these: The sound quality has to be passable, no noise Comfortable to wear — no matter how you lie on your side, it shouldn’t feel bad So recently a batch of “sleep plugs” showed up on Taobao, pretty cheap, with a full set of connectors — they support the usual 3.5 as well as Type-C. Really thoughtful. So, being the bored idiot I am, I bought a pair to check them out.