The market is being flooded with ultra-cheap wireless budget in-ears from Chinese manufacturers — and they are not always safe.
Of course, you get what you pay for. But when it comes to (personal) safety, that trade-off deserves serious consideration. In this article, Headphonesty takes a closer look at the potential dangers of some budget in-ear headphones. As an example, they examine a model branded by Haribo. As is often the case, however, the underlying product appears to be generic, no-name Chinese hardware rebranded as merchandise.
The rechargeable batteries inside these earbuds — which at the time of writing are still being sold via platforms such as Amazon — turn out to be of highly questionable quality and may catch fire or even explode. The issue lies in the construction of the battery’s safety features: the overlap margin of the anode in the electrode layers is simply too small to provide adequate protection. According to the article, it measures just 0.072 mm, compared to the industry standard of around 0.5 mm. In battery layers where defects occur, this can lead to overheating and fire.
Play it safe
Obviously, that is not something you want happening inside your ear. Things can also go wrong during charging. The advice is clear: don’t use them while lying on one ear, and only charge them when you can keep a close eye on them.
As noted, this issue certainly does not apply only to Haribo-branded earbuds, but to many Chinese in-ears sold under various fantasy brand names. Our advice would be simple: save up for another month. For just twenty or thirty euros more, you can buy a reliable product from a well-known brand. After all, most of us don’t have a CT scanner in the basement — as Headphonesty used — to check exactly how a battery is constructed.
Several other Hifi websites and forums have stopped linking to Headphonesty as their articles are mostly AI content created from other sources, has Alpha Audio also considered this?