Review: Buhel SOUNDglasses SG05

Buhel SOUNDglasses is a sunglasses with an extra feature: Bluetooth headphones with bone conduction technology. No need for wires, we can simply wear these glasses and start listening to music, or receiving phone calls from our smartphones. Thanks to its bone conduction technology, we do not need to plug anything inside our ears, so we remain 100% aware of other sound around us. This is a perfect product for various situation that requires full awareness of our surrounding, such as crossing a busy road, driving, biking or running.

Some of you might have read about this product as the most funded sunglasses in Kickstarter. SG05 come with 4 pairs of interchangeable lenses: smoke grey, clear, iridescent and polarised. Plus, I also got a pair of frame accessory for prescription lenses. In other words, this is one product for multiple occasions. We can wear it as sunglasses, or as normal prescription glasses. In the package, I also got a hard case, wall charger with EU plug, micro-USB cable, 12cm mono earphone cable, glasses strap, cloth bag for the glasses, cloth bag for the extra lenses, printed manual guide and a weird-looking powerbank.

There are 2 buttons on SG05. One is volume button and the other one is multi function button for turning the device on/off, answering or ending calls, activating Siri/Cortana. There is a small red-blue LED indicator to tell us about pairing mode, low battery and charging mode. It uses Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, AVRCP, HFP and HSP for music listening. The Bluetooth chip remembers the last 7 devices it connected to. These glasses weigh 43 gr, IP56-certified water resistant and has wireless range up to 10 m.

When not actively used, this product promises up to 300 hours of standby time. One full charge is rated to last 3 hours of music listening or phone calls. Using the mono earphone cable could save a little bit of battery power, allowing up to 5 hours of music listening. All lenses are PC 2.0, Category 3 protection, impact resistant and anti-scratch.

Enough with the specs, now let us talk about the actual device.

Build quality
SG05 build quality is solid. It actually looks good as sunglasses and I like it. The weight does not bother me as much as I anticipated. It does feel slightly heavier than ordinary sunglasses, but not to point of being uncomfortable. However, the cover on top of the micro-USB port (for charging) looks extremely fragile. I really hope I won’t accidentally destroy it in the near future. The rubber cover of the two buttons also looks fragile and I think I almost had it pulled out (accidentally) after few minutes of using. I managed to put it back though, hopefully it will stay there.

Lenses
The lenses are looking good. The process of changing lenses are a bit tricky for the first time. But once I had one successful experience, it was not so hard anymore. I have tested the polarised lenses and they are, indeed, polarised. I never had sunglasses with interchangeable lenses, so I am a bit excited with the fact that I sorta have 4+1 options.

Bone conduction technology
The so-called bone conduction technology is basically a pair of bumps located on both temples. These bumps will touch the skin above our ears when we wear the glasses. When music is playing, I can feel some vibration coming from the bumps, along with audible sound that I can hear even without wearing the glasses. Yes, I can hear the music just fine just like having sunglasses with two tiny speakers.

Audio quality
Wireless connection when playing music is smooth and stable. Audio quality is somewhere between average and slightly disappointing. It basically feels like hearing music from cheap (non-branded) $10 speakers that I once bought from eBay. I was disappointed for a while, but then I realised that even having sunglasses with tiny speakers are still kinda cool. Perhaps the biggest letdown is the sound leakage. I asked my wife to listed to some music from SOUNDglasses SG05 and I can clearly hear the music. I really do not like when people around me can hear the song I am listening. It beats the whole purpose of using earphones, might as well as carrying Bluetooth speaker outdoor. But then again, SOUNDglasses are NOT earphones. Nothing goes into our ears. Okay, now I am a bit confused how should I judge the audio quality without any real comparison. In the end, I do get some music from my glasses. Something I did not have before. Having music is better than not having music. But if I am in a situation where I can choose, I would mostly prefer my other headphones or earphones for music listening.

Control
There are only 2 buttons, theoretically it should easy to control SG05’s operation. One button for volume is fairly straightforward. We keep pressing the button to increase the volume, up to the point of maximum volume we will hear a short beep and another button press will set the volume back to minimum. So it uses rotation system. The other button is dubbed as multi-function button. I can use it to turn on and turn off the SOUNDglasses. I can also use it to receive incoming calls. However, I could not figure out how to pause the playing music. Every time I tried to pause, it triggered Siri instead.

Outdoor use
Using SOUNDglasses in public transport (trams and buses) are not really an enjoyable experience. If I kept the volume low, I barely hear anything. When I increased the volume to medium, I finally heard something, but my wife told me she can clearly hear the music too. I tried increasing the volume to a high level and I finally heard decent music, but people around me can hear it too, to the point they can easily identify the song. I generally do not like it when people around me can hear my music. The only feasible scenario I can see for this product is to wear it when I do my routine walk every evening.

This product gives me mixed feeling. The sunglasses is great and stylish and I would not hesitate to wear it even it does not have the extra feature as Bluetooth headphones. However, the price I was paying was certainly too high for any sunglasses of a brand that most people would never heard about. The bone conduction audio, which justifies the rest of the price, does deliver the functionality, but not the quality that I expected. For now, I would use this as my everyday sunglasses for few days/weeks to get better feeling of its usability.