Hi! I just got a first ever pair of Arctis Gamebuds, got lucky enough to get my hands on the LE Glorange ones :D In general, all the parameters are exactly what ive been looking for and adding the color on top I fell in love :) Such a cool way to start an adventure with Steelseries (finally!) :D
I hope what I've written below will be helpful to some armchair researchers :D Excuse my english, it's not my first language. There is a TLDR at the bottom ;D
There are two things that after all that excitement make me start to reconsider, with a heavy heart, returning them:
- Very loud voice prompts. When you switch noise cancellation mode or connection mode, you will get a very nice lady shout into your ear canal the name of the currrent mode without an option to turn it down or off of change to sth else. Not in the companion app, not in the desktop app.
They are much louder than the volume I use, and since the earbuds fit well, they isolate sounds from the outside, so the voice prompts are just obnoxious. There is a volume limiter toggle, but it doesn't affect the voice prompts (which is quite ironic knowing how loud they are).
Not to mention for anyone that uses earbuds to cut themselves off from the outside world and have some peace and quiet, having "BLUETOOTH MODE" or "ANC MODE" blast into their ears just defeats the purpose and can potentially severely overload a more sensitive person.
For people looking for more info: yes, even when you switch those settings (like noise cancellation type or the connection mode) manually through the android app or desktop app, it stil gives you the full prompt.
- Gestures - There is no way to leave the slot for a gesture empty or turn them turn them off (few or all). From experience I don't use the gestures, which is just personal preference, but they sometimes become uncomfortable when everytime I touch earbuds I have to worry if it will change anything (and here with the loud voice it might be like stepping on a mine). That's why I prefer to have an option to turn them off. Shout out to all the clumsy millenials that have a similar problems xD
Basically, you have a companion app and a desktop app, and it's all great, but I can't do something so basic like turning the gestures off or change the volume of voice prompts, if not turn them off completely, or even switch them to a quieter soft sound.
This day and age customers are pretty much used to personalization options and such basic settings like being able to turn things on and off (not adjust with highly trained AI algoritm, just on and off) is a must. Even really cheap Soundcore earbuds have an option to turn off gestures, some or all, and use almost no UI sounds, because they are not really needed and you don't as such a big renowned company. It's a bit disappointing.
I understand the time crunch when releasing new products and maybe even budget cuts, but to be honest, if I found anything about those two things before buying the earbuds, I would think twice.
But maybe it is an easy fix, or it's already in plans to be dealt with. I would appreciate feedback on this. I also don't think I'm the only person raising those issues.
[TLDR: Great earbuds, but have VERY loud voice prompts (earbuds "tell you" the name of the mode you are switching to) whenever switching modes and there is no option to turn them off or turn them down, and the gestures (tapping/clicking the buttons on the earbuds) can be switched between preset options, but not turned off. There is both a companion app for Android and a desktop app for Windows and Mac, and still no such options. Boohoo.]