Damn, 1st post of 2023 but almost half way into March already - where does the time go!
Anyway, this will be a quick-one, more an observation really. I have a penchant for bitching about BT pairing performance, particularly with Linux, and imo, with good reason. I have three BT headsets, and they've all exhibited problems connecting reliably. I list them here by date of purchase;
MPow Phantom.
Silvercrest SKHK 40 C1.
Anker Life Q30.
I've already posted about the Anker headset, and how flabbergasted I was on testing it, to discover its extraordinarily long run-time - namely, over 77hrs of use on a single charge, whereas, its official expected runtime is 60hrs. This recently got me thinking about the other two headset's run-times, so I decided that some tests were in order.
Specifically, after making sure each headset's battery was completely exhausted, each was charged and used 'normally', ie. staggered-usage, listening to ebooks/music/podcasts etc. for periods of around 4 to 10hrs on consecutive days, noting the times, and at a comfortable listening volume, until they powered themselves off. It should be superfluous to add that even though all three have a 3.5mm input jack for corded usage, all listening was done over Bluetooth.
I did this twice for the Mpow, bought on Amazon in 2015, so it's the oldest and has received the most abuse. It also has the oldest BT version - v4.0. I was staggered to note times of 25hrs & 27hrs runtime from it, particularly since its stated runtime-usage is listed at just 10-12hrs max.
The Silvercrest was Aldi/Lidl derived, at least 4 years old and has received moderate usage. I haven't been able to find an official expected-runtime for it, but was equally impressed to discover that it provided a listening time of 32hrs before powering itself off.
So my question, how are my listening-times so much greater than what's claimed, even by the manufacturers themselves? The ancient Mpow for example, still has more than twice their claimed runtime, despite having already provided at least several hundreds of hours of usage. At a guess, it would appear that there is some kind of 'regenerative' process in operation, where, when left to sit overnight, their Li-Ion batteries somehow partially recharge themselves. Whatever the reason, I'm fascinated by the whole thing and might investigate this further.
