During my commutes to and from work I regularly enjoy listening to some good music or a podcast to turn a humdrum moment into something a little more desirable. Part of what makes that experience enjoyable was the BlueAnt Ribbon, a nicely designed Bluetooth streaming device that can be used with most headphones. Allowing my phone to stay in my pocket during simple operations like answering a phone call or changing the music is an indispensable feature for me. Well, today all that came to an end.
The problem here wasn’t in its implementation at all. What failed, now for the second time is the headphone jack. The first time it happened I thought it just happened to be a one time faulty unit. I called customer service which was excellent and I was sent a replacement unit. The customer service representative didn’t even ask to have the malfunctioning unit sent in. Thinking back now, maybe they should have asked for it to investigate. Anyway, yesterday while walking through the city the sound in the left earbud of my Shure’s just quit. It was like déjà vu all over again. Conducting my own little makeshift investigation I discovered that one of the connectors within the headphone jack wasn’t making contact with the plug causing the sound to only play through the right earbud. I’m either really unlucky or this connector is poorly made.
So here I am, 8 months and two devices later I’m back to plugging my headphones into my phone again and having to pull it out of my pocket every time I want to change the music or answer a call. I am heavily debating whether or not to request another unit but I will be contacting BlueAnt about this issue again. It’s a real shame that a component as common as an audio jack connector which isn’t new technology by any stretch of the imagination ruined such a fantastic device for me… twice.
Wyatt's Tech Corner 
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