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RHA’s TrueConnect buds look like a promising AirPods rival

RHA’s TrueConnect buds look like a promising AirPods rival

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USB-C charging, Bluetooth 5, 25 hours of total battery life, and a reasonable price

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Photo: RHA

Scottish earphones specialist RHA has just announced its first true wireless model, called the TrueConnect, and there’s a whole heap of good things to like about it. Firstly, it charges via USB-C, as it should, and lasts up to five hours on one charge, with four more charges stored in its carrying case. Then there’s the design, which employs a stem much like Apple’s AirPods — that should help keep an uninterrupted connection by pushing the wireless radios further away from the listener’s ear. Those antennas support Bluetooth 5 connectivity, which RHA tells me was “essential” to achieving the high power efficiency of these buds. And the price of all this is a sane $169.95 / €169.95 / £149.95.

If I had to enumerate a checklist of all the specs a pair of wireless earbuds should offer, the RHA TrueConnect would tick all the boxes. Beside having more than 24 hours of total battery life, their case also supports fast charging that tops it up to 50 percent in 15 minutes. The TrueConnect are IPX5-rated for sweat and splash resistance, and they are designed to provide noise isolation, which is the one thing the AirPods can’t do. The stem of these buds moves the microphone closer to the wearer’s mouth, so RHA promises high-quality calls as well as music. The TrueConnect are compatible with all the voice assistants you could want to use, as has quickly become standard among wireless headphones.

There’s always a chance that these sound better on paper than in the ear, but I’m encouraged by RHA’s history of producing pretty great earphones. The RHA TrueConnect are available to preorder now, and they’ll be on general sale for just under $170 starting on October 18th.