by Sure those Apple Airpods are nice but my budget doesn’t stretch to that. So after many searches for cheap bluetooth headphones, my super cheap Rcool Twins TWS wireless earbuds arrived.
First impressions of the £11 earbuds:
I plugged them in with the short double headed cable (see above) and they produced a nice red glow – and when they were charged a nice green one
They don’t appear to have come with any instructions although all the descriptions say 1x User Guide – I probably need to double check the envelope in case there is a tiny slip in there
Anyway they fit nicely in my ear and feel secure (they don’t appear to have come with any alternative sized tips – but I’ve plenty of those as I always put the spares you get with most earbuds in my little stash…) Assuming you can actually change the tips on these of course!
Turned one on and the nice Chinese girl announced “Power on!” Held the button down and got “Pairing” – and then “Connected”
The sound is pretty good – definitely for my usage which is 90% podcasts. I’m no audiophile so I’m not that fussy – if I was to say anything about the sound music-wise it’d be that it’s perhaps a touch tinny.
The earbud let me listen to podcasts and music – neither of which the iPhone allows my (beloved but admittedly old) Motorola H350 bluetooth earpiece to do.
So far so good. Now it gets a bit odd… Turned on the second one – and the nice girl announced the power on – in Chinese (Mandarin I would have to assume…)
I decided to ignore that little oddity for now and carry on – after all, the Bluetooth operations are usually the same on all earpieces. Press to turn on, hold down to invoke pairing, etc. [That shows what I know… the rest of this piece was written “on the fly” as it happened while I spent a day in the hospital with my son waiting for him to have some minor surgery – he is fine btw and recovering well. Bear in mind I didn’t have any instructions and was trying to figure this out with a mixture of logic, experience and the help of Mr Duck Duck Go]
The second earbud paired as easily as the first but oddly identified itself as TWS 11 identically to the first. But no sound – only getting sound from the first one – tapped the button the on the second one to stop the playback – that worked, tapped again to restart and I’ve got sound in the second earbud but now the first is silent…This will need more investigation – perhaps with the help of the Duck.
If in the end it turns out they’re not really a “pair” in the true sense I think I’ll be a touch disappointed but not desperately upset – however I shan’t judge till I have investigated properly.
Note that these earbuds have no volume controls or anything like that – only the one big on/off and tap for start/stop, invoke Siri, answer/end calls etc. There is a tiny pinhole by the button at the “fat end” which I am assuming is a microphone – not sure what sort of quality that’s going to produce on a call but I’ll see later I suppose.
Ok the Duck found me this
and
Notice :
- Two headphones connected to the phone to talk, only the left channel headphone works, when listen music, two headsets work.
- Two headphones for wireless stereo (TWS) connection can only use the left channel headset to connect the phone, if use the right channel of the headset to connect the phone,
- when the left channel headset automatically connected to the right channel headset after the phone connection will be interrupted. after the two headphones are connected with themobile phone successfully, the next time you turn on the two headphones, they will automatically return to the connected mobile phone, if you do not connect automatically, please press the left channel headset button, Back to the phone.
Seems I need to experiment a bit – why one is in Chinese I don’t know OK so I solved the Chinese thing with some help from the Duck, you need to power up, hold power to get pairing mode and then double click the control button really rapidly and the nice Chinese lady now says “English voice prompt” Interestingly this earbud seems a bit more muted/bassy/muddy sounding on music playback than the other one. Perhaps as a pair they’d give a good mix?
Just gotta find out how to get them to play together properly
Ah ha – I have cracked it, or perhaps more correctly the Duck did… And I quote:
How to pair with Your Bluetooth Device
- Ordinary mono connection: a: Long press “MFB”(Multi-function button) for 5 seconds, till Red and Green LED indicator light flashing alternately the headphone will report “ready to pair”. b: Enable the Bluetooth function of the device and search for available Bluetooth devices, then select “TWS 11” from the search results. c: the Red and Blue [actually it is green as they mention originally] indicator will stop flash, and you will hear a “Beep”, means it is connected.
[BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…]
- Wireless Stereo Connections(TWS) 1:Long Press the power button of the 2 headphones about 10 seconds at the same time until the red and green lights flashing simultaneously. And then the 2 headphones will connect automatically. [To each other they mean]
- After the 2 headphones connected,the headphones will report “connected” and the 2 headphones will report “left channel” and “right channel” respectively,and then turn the 2 headphones off.
- Take the left channel headphone and long press the button till Red and Green LED indicator light flashing alternately to enter into pairing status.Enable the Bluetooth function of the device and search for available Bluetooth devices, then select “TWS 11” from the search results.
- Take the right channel and turn it on.the right and the left channel headphones will connect automatically. Then you can use the 2 headphones on your cellphone at the same time.
The secret of my success? Forget both previously paired TWS 11 devices from the iPhone, turn off Bluetooth on the phone…. turn both earbuds on simultaneously and hold the button down till they connect TO EACH OTHER… and one says left channel and one says right channel like the instructions say. Turn them both off and turn on Bluetooth on the iPhone. Now turn on the left channel earbud and pair it to the phone. THEN – once that’s going turn on the right channel and it connects and you get “second device added” followed by the report of left channel and right channel – and then you have glorious 360° stereo. Only the left earbud is actually paired to the phone – the right is effectively a slave to the first one as far as I can tell. It’d have been a lot easier if I’d found the instructions in the pack when I opened it I am sure!
Still it’s kept me occupied – something to pass the time while I sit here waiting.
Now I found how to make them work correctly for £11 and £1.50 postage these are pretty excellent. Nice fit for me, comfortable and light, they feel secure in my ear. Good enough sound quality, responsive controls with a large easy to find “MFB” (as they so eloquently described it). Only downside I can find atm is no volume control on the earbuds themselves. I can live with that though.
Final thoughts: Spent most of the afternoon using them to listen to podcasts and Amazon Music. I must have wrung maybe 6 hours out of them before they said “Low Battery… Please charge!” and that strikes me as pretty damn good. I have already liked them so much I have ordered a second pair for the wife. 😀
I have a pair of TWS 11. They’ve been workin fine since I’ve got them. Suddenly only one earbud is workin. I can not get them in connection-mode and say left-right channel. The go directly to parring. But only right bud is parring with the phone. Since they’ve been working before I am a bit lost. Any suggestions.I have tryed what you have written, but no luck.
Laila – the best I can suggest is that you remove them from all your devices with the “forget this device” (on Mac/iOS) or the equivalent. Then I would go back to the start and do the thing to make them connect to each other… I suspect they have become “uncoupled” – if that won’t work I can only assume one has failed but even then you should still be able to use a single one (although you would still need to do the “coupling” to make sure that working one isn’t the “slave”
I have the instructions… trust me it wasn’t easier. 😑 thanks for the post. Helped a lot. 😊
I have the instructions. Both went on the phone fine. Can only listen to music from one and I’m actually quite disappointed. They don’t actually seem to pair with each other properly. When I try it just calls up the last person dialed. So now I’ll have to explain over 20 phone calls…
I know how you feel that happened to me…
this his how to make the buds pair to EACH OTHER before you attempt to connect to the phone – they work as a master and a slave in effect.
1. Wireless Stereo Connections(TWS) 1:Long Press the power button of the 2 headphones about 10 seconds at the same time until the red and green lights flashing simultaneously. And then the 2 headphones will connect automatically. [To each other they mean]
2. After the 2 headphones connected,the headphones will report “connected” and the 2 headphones will report “left channel” and “right channel” respectively,and then turn the 2 headphones off.
Take the left channel headphone and long press the button till Red and Green LED indicator light flashing alternately to enter into pairing status.Enable the Bluetooth function of the device and search for available Bluetooth devices, then select “TWS 11” from the search results.
3. Take the right channel and turn it on.the right and the left channel headphones will connect automatically. Then you can use the 2 headphones on your cellphone at the same time.
The secret of my success? Forget both previously paired TWS 11 devices from the iPhone, turn off Bluetooth on the phone…. turn both earbuds on simultaneously and hold the button down till they connect TO EACH OTHER… and one says left channel and one says right channel like the instructions say.
4. Turn them both off and turn on Bluetooth on the iPhone. Now turn on the left channel earbud and pair it to the phone. THEN – once that’s going turn on the right channel and it connects and you get “second device added” followed by the report of left channel and right channel – and then you have glorious 360° stereo. Only the left earbud is actually paired to the phone – the right is effectively a slave to the first one as far as I can tell.
Mine doesn’t say left or right Chanel.
Then I suspect you haven’t paired the two buds into the Master/slave mode… they either work as simple bluetooth earpieces similar or they pair together to become a stereo set…
This isn’t made very clear in the instructions and took me some time to figure out. I suggest you remove them from any devices and then start again. Remember to put the two buds together and hold them both down until they reach the pairing mode and say Device Connected, Left/Right Channel. Then the left one is Master (or in my case it is) and you can pair that to your phone or whatever.
I have found that mine work perfectly well with my iPhone, but with my older MacBook Pro they are prone to dropping out or fading from one side to the other. I think they don’t like the older Bluetooth so much
Athena – you probably need to remove them from the phone (forget this device in the Bluetooth settings) Then redo the master/slave pairing. Then reconnect them to the phone. As these are super cheap I suspect QA isn’t that good, some people like me seem to have had fairly good luck with them. Others have had nothing but issues…
I Just Wanna Say A Big
THANKKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUU!
I’m only getting about 2 hours from the right EarPods the left not getting no blue flash when placed the my ear. It’s saying fully charged in the case, meaning the blue light shows but in the case only
Hello, in my case they do not connect to each other… they way it used to work was, I turn them both on at the same time, then they said team successfull and then connected (to the phone) now I turn them both on, and it doesn’t say team successfull it only connects the right one automatically to the phone but no sound in the left one… so I tried your method 1. remove the devise from phone check. 2. turn them on at the same time check, now the right one said wating for the team and that is it.. they do not connect to each other!… what do I dooooo, I looked long and hard with no luck 🙁
Oh dear – sounds like the second one might have given up the ghost then…
Thank you so much for your post! I was able to get both sides paired and I’m sitting here listening to music!
Hi there. Please help. I do not see any lights come on, on the charging box. The lights inside come on but not the lights on the outside of the box, is that a problem?
Secondly, I’ve tried pairing the 2 buds, while the Bluetooth functionality is off on the phone, but the lights keep flashing as though they are pairing but they don’t actually paid. Please help?
I don’t have the ones in a box – I have the earlier / cheaper ones that charge by cable. As for the pairing… The secret of my success? Forget both previously paired TWS 11 devices from the iPhone, turn off Bluetooth on the phone…. turn both earbuds on simultaneously and hold the button down till they connect TO EACH OTHER… and one says left channel and one says right channel like the instructions say. Turn them both off and turn on Bluetooth on the iPhone. Now turn on the left channel earbud and pair it to the phone. THEN – once that’s going turn on the right channel and it connects and you get “second device added” followed by the report of left channel and right channel – and then you have glorious 360° stereo. Only the left earbud is actually paired to the phone – the right is effectively a slave to the first one as far as I can tell. It’d have been a lot easier if I’d found the instructions in the pack when I opened it I am sure!
The timing is a little tricky but make sure they are removed from all devices and bluetooth is off before you try to connect them together.
thanks a lot really the instructions helped
Thank you!!
Can use one EarPod on one iphone and use the second on second i phone?