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I am starting to HATE Bluetooth Products! – Quickest way to waste money!
Introduction
It’s time for a rant! I am a big fan of music and music gear, and I’ve been noticing a trend that has now crossed over into the guitar scene. At first, it didn’t bother me, but now it infuriates me more than it probably should! I’m talking about Bluetooth. It’s everywhere, and why I am starting to hate bluetooth! I think I need to explain why.
It’s not Bluetooth itself that I dislike. I love the idea of Bluetooth! The freedom of going cable-free and being able to switch between several devices quickly is amazing and convenient. However, with this much freedom comes a huge drawback, which I’m noticing more and more with guitar tech. So, let me explain!
Why do I Hate Bluetooth?
As I mentioned, I love the idea of Bluetooth, and in some cases, it works really well. However, it has started to appear in everything! The downside of this is that Bluetooth-enabled devices need a battery! This is the first reason I hate bluetooth! With the ongoing trend to make everything small and thin, these batteries tend to be hardwired in, so you can’t replace them. Why is this an issue? Well, once that battery dies (which it inevitably will), you can’t replace it, and the device becomes useless! It just gets thrown out.
Let’s look at an example: the Boss Waza-Air Headphones. These are great-sounding and super useful guitar amp headphones! But the device has an inbuilt battery that can be recharged but not replaced. This means when the battery dies, which it eventually will, the device becomes practically useless. Boss says you can send it to them for servicing, but I bet the price for them to swap out the battery would be the same as buying a new pair of headphones (maybe even more). So what does this mean? Your £350 headphones become useless, and you end up throwing them out!
Another example I see more and more is wireless IEMs or guitar transmitters. To keep costs down, these often use non-replaceable batteries. This means that once the battery goes, it’s basically a paperweight. Combine this with the fact that they will likely use low-quality batteries (again, to keep costs down), and you have a product that can’t be repaired and isn’t designed to last long! It all adds up to a waste of money.
I know the batteries won’t die immediately. You might get a year out of them, maybe even five or more years. However, they will die eventually—that’s how batteries work! Also, it’s not just a matter of “when they die.” Any device with a battery will hold less and less charge over time. Eventually, the device won’t hold enough charge to make it worth using. So, you will probably give up on it before the batteries actually die. Again, you end up throwing it out and buying another one! But why is this a problem?
Why Is This Bad?
So, why is this bad, you might ask? There are many reasons, but I’m going to go over my two biggest ones. First, it leads to a kind of pay-to-play or subscription model. Every year or every few years, you have to pay a fee to keep using the product. Let’s take the Boss Waza headphones again: you buy them for £350, use them and love them, but after two years, you find they only last a few minutes on a charge. You then buy another pair. You’ve effectively signed up for a two-year subscription at a cost of £175 a year!
If you could simply replace the battery for a few pounds, it would be easier, cheaper, and better! However, you can’t do this, because that’s how the company designed it. Want another example? Think about Apple. They removed the headphone jack, which forces you to buy Bluetooth headphones. These headphones break and die, so you have to buy more. Then those break, and the cycle continues!
The other issue is that this leads to more e-waste. With production becoming cheaper as companies move manufacturing to places with low costs, you can buy products cheaply. But these products are likely to break and die, leading you to just throw them out. It’s also a waste of money for us, the consumers! You shouldn’t have to spend hundreds (sometimes thousands) of your money on a product that is essentially on a timer to break! Imagine buying a tube amp and knowing that when the tubes die, you have to throw the whole amp out. Or when guitar strings wear out, you have to throw the entire guitar away. Even if you don’t care about e-waste, do you want to waste your money?
What’s the Fix?
To put it simply, I’ve started to avoid Bluetooth devices that don’t have replaceable batteries. This means I’ve gone back to wired headphones and plug-in or rechargeable battery speakers. When it comes to guitar playing, I’m now using an old-school guitar cable instead of those cheap, battery-powered wireless units. If a cable breaks, I can repair it! So, I’ve started checking how “repairable” a device is before I buy it. Does it have a replaceable battery? Does it have a backup option (like Bluetooth headphones with an AUX input)? I’m being more mindful when purchasing guitar gear or tech products.
Fortunately, there do seem to be rules and regulations coming in about the right to repair (yes, we’re looking at you, Apple). Hopefully, this will allow us to repair our devices, even if it’s just replacing the battery. Because, let’s be honest, with modern electronics, the battery is likely the only thing that will really break and need replacing.
Conclusion
Sadly, I don’t see a real end to this issue. The more I think about it, the more I hate Bluetooth! I think it might improve, but as long as big companies can produce products cheaply, sell them at a high price, and then get you to buy them again in a few years, why would they change? Hopefully, some legislation will come in to help us, as consumers, so we don’t have to buy products that are destined to die!
Anyway, that’s my rant about why I hate bluetooth! Maybe this should be a series where I pick a topic and go off on a rant about it. Let us know over on our Instagram! We’d love to know if you’d like that, and also how you feel about this topic. Have we made you think differently about what you plan to buy? Maybe not? Let us know either way!
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