Customer Ratings & Reviews

Context: I am not an audiophile and use my headphones in 2 settings- at work to block out the cube farm noises and when running or working out by myself for an hour or more. I also just happen to have 5 pairs of bluetooth headsets right now (yes, I may have a problem). Sound: Not as rich or as bass-heavy as some others I’ve used. That said, if I didn’t have the aforementioned problem and many pairs to compare, I know I’d find the sound very good. Comfort: they’re small and light and once you figure out which set of eartips fits best, they are extremely comfortable and the tight, secure fit does a great job of blocking outside noises. Ease of Use & App: As a sign of how spoiled we’ve become, I was slightly annoyed that I actually had to look at the Quick Start Guide to get these to pair the first time. It took me an extra 2 minutes, but was not as seamless as others I’ve unboxed. After testing them out for a while, I downloaded the BackBeat app. I’ve only used one other pair of earbuds with an app and the Plantronics folks have some work to do! The app has only limited functionality and I absolutely could not apply the firmware update that it indicated was available; as soon as I initiated the update, the headset would disconnect from the phone, rendering the update process impossible. I tried multiple wifis, multiple locations and even made a call to the support line (which went as well as most calls to technical support lines)- still can’t apply the update! I’m not even sure the firmware is completely necessary, but it should work regardless! Uses: These sound good- on par with most others, but not as bass-heavy as a couple others I’ve used. They do a good job of blocking out outside noises. They are adequate for use at the gym while lifting and moving around, but I would not use them on a run as they will wiggle out and fall (that’s OK with me as I’m NOT a believer in trying to cancel out all noises while running- I'm pretty sure I’d rather hear the car about the hit me or the dog that’s about to attack. If you want a headset for running, find a pair with hooks!) Summary: There are competitors in the same price range with better sound, better usability, a better app- just better!

The shape is different and it’s not comfortable for my small ears.

These have a really nice balanced sound, nothing is overly done. You get to hear lots of details. Sadly the price is far too high. Pros: Great sound Super light and comfortable Volume control Cons Micro USB No wireless charging Only ipx4 Price If they were $99 then they would be a 5 star.

First love how small and discreate they are, but the sound that they generate is amazing. Love the charging case, calls on bluetooth are clear, The only thing i dont like but has no effect on my review is having to push to drop valume or pause music, it creates some air suction in the ear.

Setup: On first receiving the BackBeat PRO 5100, I removed the earphones from the case and the audio prompt said that the battery level was high. But after replacing them in the case and removing them again, the audio prompt said that the battery level was low. I suggest fully charging the case and earphones before first use. It took several attempts to manually pair the earphones to my phone. I later learned that pairing and use are more effective if the right earpiece is removed from the charging case first before the left earpiece. If you are only getting audio from one earpiece, replace them both in the charging case and remove the right earpiece from the case before removing the left. Note: There may be four Bluetooth devices that will appear in the list of available devices, two audio devices (“PLT BBPRO5100” and “PLT BBPRO5100_L”) and two low-energy devices (“PLTBBPRO5100BLE” and “PLTBBPRO5100BLE_L”). The audio and LE connections for the left earpiece have “_L” at the end of the device name. The LE devices require less battery and are used for data communications (e.g. volume control and firmware updates). Once paired with your smartphone, install and open the Plantronics BackBeat app. If the app cannot connect with the earphones, try replacing both in the charging case, remove the right earpiece before removing the left earpiece and try again. Once connected to the app, there will likely be an update to the earphone firmware that needs to be installed. Firmware is updated in the right earpiece and then the left earpiece over the LE connection and may take up to 20 minutes to complete. You do not have to keep them in your ears, but the earpieces must remain in close proximity to the smartphone (I recommend no more than one foot) and cannot be placed in the charging case. Only attempt a firmware update when the earpieces are fully charged. The earphones come with their volume level set to about 25% of their maximum. I increased them to 100% and thereafter used my source device to change the volume. Design: I like the completely wireless design with no cord to manage and no microphonics. The magnetic seating mechanism ensures that the contacts between the earpieces and charging case are aligned and in good contact. I would have preferred that the earphones not be sensitive to the order in which they were removed from the case. Taking the left earpiece out first turned out to be the reason for many of my setup problems. The separate Bluetooth connections for audio and LE communication with the left and right earpieces might prolong battery life, but the LE implementation limits the range over which control signals will work. The status light in the case goes off when the charge is complete. I would have preferred a pattern or color change (e.g. blinking to solid or red to green) when connected to a USB power cable. Operation: Earphone track controls, play/pause, volume, call answer/hang-up work fine but are limited in range since they use the LE Bluetooth connection. Microphone: The microphone worked well for calls and I could be clearly heard, but voices on the other end sounded tinny. Sound Quality: The sound quality on the BackBeat PRO 5100 is anemic. The frequency response was biased toward the mid-range and bass and treble were weak by comparison. This is unusual as most consumer-oriented earphones/headphones tend to have a “V” shaped sound signature. Equalization can help. Battery: Charging is fast for both the charging case and earphones if you use a USB port with at least 2.0 amps. Battery life is very good and can be checked with the BackBeat app. Overall: Setup was challenging because the order in which earpieces should be removed from the case (right first) is not documented. The use of LE Bluetooth channel for control signals limits the range for these features. The frequency response is biased toward the mid-range with weak bass and treble. The following albums were sampled during my review: • 2L Test Suite • Adam Harasiewicz: Chopin Nocturnes & Preludes • Antoine Dufour: Back & Forth (Sides A & B) • Bonnie Raitt: Road Tested • Calum Graham: Phoenix Rising • Don Ross: PS15 • Hoff Ensemble: Quiet Winter Night • Ian Ethan Case: Running Toward The Mountains • Joe Satriani, Flying in a Blue Dream, Unstoppable Momentum • Laurence Juber: Guitar Noir • Mike Dawes: What Just Happened • Miles Davis: Kind of Blue • Nora Jones: Come Away with Me • Sarah Mclachlan: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy • Yo-Yo Ma: Mendelssohn Piano Trios, Op. 49 & Op. 6

I LOVE these earbuds! If anyone is looking for an Apple Airpod for an Android absolutely go with these. Call quality is excellent even in noisy environments. I work retail and if I ever have to take a personal call I step outside where traffic noise is pretty loud and despite my normal concerns every time I've been using these, the audio has been amazing. I've even connected them to my computer to listen to recorded school lectures and the ability to auto-pause when removing one from your ear is just phenomenal. Battery life is pretty amazing as well. If you're on Android and jealous that you can't get Airpods, get these. Or consider these instead of Airpods if you want to save a little bit of money as they are just as functional and high quality.

So, after a long wait for these to come in stock, mine showed up today. I knew it wasn't going to be good, when it took me almost 10 minutes just to get the charging case to open; fortunately, my wife showed me how to open them, by pushing what appeared to be the BT pairing button...Anyways, when I did get the top open, and finally got the buds in and charging, I saw the old style micro usb connector, which is bad enough in late 2019, but its on the bottom of the case, making it even worse to charge. After getting them to charge up, I then tried to connect them to my brand new iPhone 11 Pro max, after downloading the app as per the instructions. That took several times to get the app to see them, and I was immediately told to download the new firmware; problem is, if you have a new iPhone, running os 13+, the app/firmware won't download and install; after trying it 5 times, I checked other online reviews, and sure enough, the current app will NOT do a firmware update with the newest version of IOS; plantronics is supposedly working on an updated app for iPhone users.. I just paired it manually it to the phone again, after getting unpaired a few times for no apparent reason, and listened to some music..sounded pretty good, so I thought I would make a few phone calls.. Everyone I called complained saying they couldn't hear me clearly, sounded like I was in a tunnel, lots of background noise, even though I was in my house in my office, so that was a major disappointment. Needless to say, I won't be using these until I am certain I can update the firmware, which, hopefully will fix these basic issues with these buds. I don't have any android devices to try these on, but, if you are on the latest iOS 13.+ I would look elsewhere for a wireless headphone solution, as for now, these do NOT appear to be ready for prime time if you own a newer iPhone .. BTW, I've owned dozens of BT headsets, both wired and wireless, so this was NOT a "rookie error"

I have A LOT of headphones and earbuds...and over the last year and a half, the count of "truly wireless earbuds" in my collection has grown more than any other tech. I recently tested the Jabra Elite 75t earbuds, Jabra's update to the 65t, and was completely blown away. Even last year's 65t buds were great, and what was most exciting to me at the time was that they were as good as they were without being made by Bose, Beats, Jaybird, or any of the other frequently touted front runner brands (that also come with premium price tags). Also exciting to me was that it was Jabra, who I had become familiar with because of their incredible business-class wireless headsets which I've used at several of my jobs over the years. And in much the same way, Plantronics has been there for me in the past when I need to make clear calls at work—so a truly wireless offering from them was particularly compelling. The case itself is of decent size; it has a physical (mechanical) button that opens the case, and the buds are secured in the case by magnets. The shape of the buds is like many of the truly wireless buds being released now, designed to fit into the outer portion of your ear securely without the need for fins or hooks. The tips of the buds have silicone funnels that help with noise isolation as well as comfort, since they don't go too deeply into your ear canal. The case charges via micro USB (because it's not almost 2020 or anything...), and everything about the design of the case and the buds screams "understated." There are multiple eartip sizes in the case as well; most often, I comfortably wear the "medium" size of ear tips on new ear buds, but I had to switch these out for the large ones to help keep everything in place. Once that change was made, they were relatively secure. They are by no means the tightest fit I've experienced in buds, but they are held in my ears just well enough to remain comfortable for a long, long time: this is probably one of the best features of these earbuds. The buds also contain four exterior microphones to help with active noise cancelation...but more on that later. On to the sound profile...this is entirely, frustratingly, terribly vanilla. In most cases, I look forward to an earbud with a relatively flat sound profile, so that I can tweak and adjust with the companion app to my particular listening preferences (I find that bass-heavy headphones can become a bit unwieldly in the lower registers, and it's nice to leave it simple so each person can customize. But, with the unchanged, flat sound profile, not surprisingly, the lows are....there, I guess. It's more of a "heard, not felt" feeling for most bass heavy music; when I hear the bass, I know that's what the artist intended based on the sound, but I'm not entirely convinced. It's a very weird experience, to say the least, and unique to these headphones for me. It's not an absence of bass—but it's far from a convincing presence for sure. The mids and highs are just as plain; everything comes through clearly, but the sound is not exactly what I would call rich; the soundstage is kind of boring. For what it's worth, they get pretty loud, and the sound holds together remarkably well at max volume, but it's not an exciting experience. So I thought, maybe the app will help. Nope. The app is closer to a practical joke than it is a helpful tool. No equalizer or sound customization of any kind. No adjustments to the noise cancelation (pass through audio, no noise cancelation, etc). There is some customization allowed to the controls on the buds, for instance, you can adjust it from default to launch voice assistant or start a timer (because that's a super important function for my earbuds to support), a couple other uninteresting features (like changing the primary bud from one to the other....yes, these can be used individually), and that's it. The noise cancelation is OK at best. In quieter environments, you can very clearly hear a hiss, and in louder environments, you wonder if it even has noise canceling capabilities at all. And because there's no ability to customize the level of noise canceling, it's hard to really know how well it does. Honestly, with the included tips the passive noise isolation is quite good, but that's about the end of the "good" features. Typically, when I talk to others about wireless earbuds or headphones, I tell them they should buy them if they want great sound quality for recipients of phone calls...we're just not (yet) to a place where this is a great experience. But, because of the brand name, I had to try it out...but I was disappointed in that area as well: callers reported significantly more background noise when compared to using just my phone or a wired headset, and when compared side by side with the Jabra Elite 75t, callers indicated my voice seemed "farther away and quieter" on the Plantronics headset. So, at least they're cheap, right? Nope. At $170, they're right in the thick of their competition...but I don't think you're going to like these more than that competition, namely the Jabra Elite 75t which is only $10 more (but far, far better). I think more than anything else, I built these up in my mind to be another really great option for those looking to get into the truly wireless market, and maybe that wasn't fair. But, at the end of the day, I just can't recommend them over other options at a similar price point. Even on sale, last year's Elite 65t from Jabra outperform the Backbeats Pro 5100 handily.