Echo and delayed sound in Bluetooth earbuds: why they happen
Three different problems
When people say "echo" in earbuds, they usually mean one of three things. First: you hear yourself in the buds when you talk on the phone. Second: the person you are talking to hears themselves, slightly delayed. Third: in films and games, the sound comes a little after the picture.
They have different causes and different fixes, so it is worth knowing first which one you have. None of them usually means the earbuds are broken.
You hear yourself
Many phones and earbuds deliberately send part of your voice back into your ear. It is called sidetone and helps you not to talk too loudly when your ears are covered. If it is too strong, it sounds like an echo.
With in-ear buds, which seal the ear, you also hear your voice "from the inside", as when you block your ears with your fingers. With open-ear buds, which leave the ear free, the effect almost disappears; the EA16, for example, sit on the ear and do not close it.
Others hear an echo
If the other person hears themselves, their voice is coming out of your buds and back into a microphone. It happens most when the volume is high or when you wear one bud and the other lies on the table next to the phone. Lower the volume, wear both buds and check that the phone uses the buds' microphone, not its own with the speaker on.
In video calls on a laptop, echo often appears when the sound comes from the laptop's speakers rather than the buds. Check in the app that the buds are chosen for both speaker and microphone.
Delayed sound in video
Bluetooth needs a short time to compress, send and play the sound. The difference is usually in the tenths of a second. With music you do not notice, but with video you see it: lips move before the voice.
Big video apps and modern phones usually compensate for this delay, so on YouTube or Netflix the sound seems in sync. If it is not, stop and restart the video or reconnect the earbuds.
In games
In games, delay matters more, because the game cannot hold back the picture to match the sound. A footstep or gunshot that comes too late puts you at a disadvantage.
Earbuds with a gaming mode reduce the delay: the GTA02 have a gaming mode with a latency of about 60 ms. Our guide to earbuds for phone games explains it in full.
On a TV and a laptop
TVs do not always compensate for Bluetooth delay. Look in the sound settings for "AV sync", "Lip sync" or "Audio delay" and match the sound to the picture. On a laptop, some video players have an audio sync setting.
If there is no setting at all, a cable removes the problem entirely: over-ear headphones with a 3.5 mm cable, such as the Pods Ultra, can plug straight into the headphone socket.
What else you can try
Keep the phone close to the buds: a weak signal makes the buds hold more sound in memory to avoid dropouts, which increases the delay. Close background apps that use Bluetooth or audio. Restart the phone if the problem appeared suddenly.
If you use the buds with a laptop and a phone, multipoint earbuds such as the Pro2 switch between them more easily, without reconnections that confuse the sound.
Echo in laptop calls
In online meetings, echo often appears when the app uses one device for sound and another for the microphone. For example, you hear in the buds but speak into the laptop's microphone, which also picks up sound escaping from the buds or speakers. In the app's settings, under Audio or Devices, choose the buds as both speaker and microphone.
If the same meeting is open on both the phone and the laptop, echo is almost certain: close it on one of them. Multipoint earbuds such as the Pro2 can stay connected to both, but the sound comes only from the device using it at that moment, so it is not doubled.
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