Wired Headphones

It is an unavoidable fact that wireless headphones require batteries to operate, and these will degrade over time. According to the source of all truth in the universe (some random people on Reddit), the battery in a typical pair of wireless headphones will last around 3 years. At this point, you either have an expensive paperweight, or need to replace the battery.

Even assuming the battery is replaceable, there is a decent chance of it being a proprietary design which the manufacturer will eventually stop producing. Not only this, but batteries are based on rare metals, of which we have a finite supply on Earth, so we as a society need to avoid over-reliance on them.

Generally speaking, wired headphones are a simpler form of technology, so they are going to be cheaper than wireless headphones with otherwise equivalent feature-sets.

I have never had to use an iPhone later than the 7, and virtually every other significant piece of consumer electronics that can output sound will have the 3.5mm headphone port. This includes all my computers and game consoles.

My current mobile phone is the Huawei P20 Lite, which I suspect is the last one Huawei will have ever made with this port, since the normal P20, the supposed higher-end model in the same generation, does not have one.

Even if your mobile phone lacks a headphone port, an adaptor dongle can easily be used.

As an aside, don’t you love how Apple obviously removed the headphone port from iPhones to strong-arm people into buying AirPods? Wireless ear-buds are possibly the worst offenders, since the tiny batteries in the ear-pieces will degrade within an even shorter time than those in on-ear headphones.

The cable does become an inconvenience at times; this cannot be denied. However, unless you’re going for a run, chances are that most of the time you’re going to be sitting still with your headphones on, in which case it barely matters.

The cable is the consumable component of wired headphones. These are vulnerable to being broken, either from excessive wear on the connectors, or from the cable itself being snapped or cut. I reckon the cable will generally be more at risk of failure without warning than a battery would, so headphones with an unremovable cable are actually worse for long-term reliability than wireless headphones, in that regard. However, if the designer has been sufficiently competent (and consumer-friendly) to make the cable removable, this can easily be replaced at little expense, with a standard part that isn’t reliant on a specific manufacturer. As for wired earbuds, these are so small and cheap that it is almost reasonable for the entire unit to be disposable.

I just recently bought the third cable for my pair of wired Skullcandy Grind headphones. These things have lasted for upwards of 7 years, with a replacement pair of ear pads providing them with a new lease on life. ¹ The first cable wasn’t broken, and I only bought a new one because the microphone in the headphones broke so I needed a cable that didn’t have a microphone wire; that original cable is still in use connecting my speaker to my PC.

Since Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) requires a power supply (hence the name), most headphones with that feature will also be wireless. The advantages of ANC are balanced by the disadvantages of needing a battery, as I explained already.