Week 08, 2024

On my last replacement pads for my headphones. Wrote about this at https://beko.famkos.net/2022/03/19/1708554/ before. The last replacement pads promised to “not tear” within 6 months. What a promise of quality eh 😒

Anyway, this is how they do look half a year later. Totally tattered. I knew the parts are EOL for a while so I purchased several sets. That’s my last one however.

Used the chance to vacuum the insides a little and this may have done the trick to fix some annoying crackling of the ANC function. Mebbe a fine hair was tickling it’s mic. Mebbe it’s just my imagination and the new ones simply manage to create a proper seal again.

I already checked for replacements of the whole headset. The situation looks dire. Apparently it’s either with built in “voice assistant” – what I totally do NOT want – or they bury features, like LDAC, behind a freakin app, that introduces a privacy nightmare (and another EOL deadline). I do take recommendations here:

* ANC enabled over-ear headphones that just work™ with BT
* without app
* without voice assist
* a full day of service
* jacks for powerless usage
* dedicated ANC button to enable/disable the feature
* AAC, LDAP and|or aptX
* Multipoint would be nice
* availability of quality replacement pads

I do not need built-in microphone support. They suck anyway.

Tried – an online Arduino simulator – and ditched it again after fiddling with it for 5 minutes.

Looks good on first glance, admitted.

Raised my first eyebrow after not finding a diode. Ah well, used a 0-resistor instead as placeholder. I don’t see how I can demo a button matrix like that though.

Checked the download as ZIP function. Hm, there is no upload function, guess I have to register for saving online. Guess I can also just import the project text files via copy and paste again. Not comfortable but I can live with that. Found open tickets for both btw.

Made a little power distribution strip on a mini breadboard. Annoying, I have to adjust the colour of each connecting wire. Nice: The text editor allows mass selection just like vscode, so I can easily update a bunch of colours after making all connections. That’s something at least.

Added and wired up two Neopixels. That was annoying, they default to a perfect rectangle wich results in overlapping connection wires on the auto grid. Always. Tried to add a rotate property of 45 deg on a hunch – that worked! Why is there no option for this like with the resistors?

Eventually I tried to upload the Adafruit NeoPixel lib to get some blinken lights going… please subscribe to upload a library with a monthly fee of (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

I get it, we all want to earn money. I added whopping _5_ objects and run into the first brick wall. Not like this!

Guess that was a futile exercise.