I told you a while ago that I took Frank’s advice recently and got the CharJenPro AirFoams Pro ear tips, which dramatically improved the sound and sealing in my ears, and that they also stayed in my ears much better than Apple’s original ear tips.
When Frank heard my review, he posted in Slack that I should now try listening to the Tom Hanks movie Greyhound on Apple TV so that I could truly experience this Spatial Audio everyone is all excited about. I had tried it before, but my reaction had been “meh”. But with the CharJenPro ear tips, I finally got why people are losing their minds about it. If you haven’t heard it yourself, Spatial Audio means that no matter where you turn your head, the sound continues to emanate from the source (say an Apple TV or your iPhone). It’s pretty freaky.
Anyway, after our two reviews went live, I heard back from a few listeners who said they’d received their ear tips from CharJenPro, and they arrived with a little note explaining that CharJenPro is a tiny company. Charlie + Jennifer = CharJen, isn’t that adorable? In the note, they quite nicely suggested that a review on Amazon would go a long way towards advancing their company.
I bought my CharJenPro ear tips directly from CharJenPro, which meant I couldn’t write an Amazon review for them, so instead, I sent them a link to my review so they could see I helped their cause in a different way. Instead of a simple “thanks!”, Charlie did something even better.
He pointed out that while I wrote my review about the CharJenPro Active ear tips, I’d actually purchased the original CharJenPro ear tips, not the Actives. He sent me a set of the Actives and their $15 AirFoams Pro detachable ear hooks for AirPods Pro.
Unfortunately, while the Actives are the most comfortable ear tips I’ve ever worn, they sadly just didn’t stay in my particular ear holes. I was bummed because they were so soft and flexible I could barely tell they were in my ears … until they weren’t. Luckily I had mistakenly bought the Pro Originals instead of the Pro Actives!
CharJenPro Ear Hooks
Let’s shift gears and talk about the CharJenPro ear hooks that Charlie sent me. Ages ago Pat Dengler tried to talk me into trying any brand of ear hook because she was so weary of me swearing into my phone when my AirPods Pro would fall out on a call with her. I immediately dismissed the idea of any kind of ear hook, because I knew it would be a pain in the backside to take them on and off every time I charged my AirPods Pro to be able to fit them in the case. I’m a habit-driven person, and my habit here is that I always charge the case whenever I take my AirPods Pro out of the case, so I’d have to do this dance every time I use the AirPods Pro.
In the years that Pat has been hearing me say non-Girl Scout safe words every time I knock my AirPods out of my ears while talking to her, it’s gotten much worse in the last year. I’m sure you have guessed why – I call her on my long outdoor walks and I’m constantly putting on my mask and taking it off. I’ve got a 62.3% success rate taking the mask off without catching one AirPod stem and knocking it out of my ear.
Since Charlie was so nice to comp me the $15 AirFoams Pro Ear Hooks, I figured I might as well give them a try.
The AirFoams Pro Ear Hooks come with two rubbery flexible sets, one white and one translucent. It is surprisingly easy to put the CharJenPro ear hooks onto the AirPods, once you get the hang of it. The hard part (for me at least) is to figure out which one goes on the left side and which one goes on the right. There are holes of different shapes in the rubber ear hooks, so as you tug them over the AirPods, you’re meant to line them up with the matching black sensor areas on the AirPods. It’s actually helpful because if you have the holes lined up correctly, then the ear hooks will be correctly aligned to stick in your ear.
Maybe it’s just me, but even without messing around with ear hooks, I can’t tell the left AirPod Pro from the right. However, with the translucent version of the CharJenPro ear hooks, it actually magnifies and highlights the letter R and L on the AirPods Pro. That was kind of a nice treat. A little bonus prize to help me get them in the correct ear.
My one trick for speeding up putting on the ear hooks is that I always put them in the box in the same way, with the left on the left and right on the right. I found a spot for the box that is always in the same place and doesn’t get moved around. If I couldn’t do that, I think I’d put a red dot with some nail polish on one of them. Once I stopped having trouble trying to put the wrong one on the wrong AirPod, I have found that it takes me maybe an extra minute and a half to get ready for my walks to put them on. My walks are around 30 min at the shortest, so that’s a small investment to clean up my language when talking to Pat and to minimize the probability of dropping an AirPod down a storm drain.
I’ve been using the AirFoams Pro Ear Hooks on every walk for the last two weeks, and only once in all that time have I flipped an AirPod out of my ear pulling my mask off. And Pat’s delicate sensibilities are no longer subject to my sailor-level epithets.
I wouldn’t call them life-changing but I’m hooked on the CharJenPro Ear Hooks, and for $15 they’re a great way to keep my AirPods Pro in my ears.
If you do go check out the ear tips or ear hooks made by CharJen, do take a gander at all of the other nifty products they sell. They’ve got several really interesting USB-C hubs, two stands for iPhone and iPad, and a hub for the Windows Surface Go. The designs are all really elegant and look like they solve some real problems. The charging stand for iPhone and AirPods is simply gorgeous and is going on my birthday wishlist for sure. Both the iPhone and iPad stands are about to go into Kickstarter, but for $1 you can reserve a spot to get 25% off when they do come out.