Overview of COMMO Hover headphones from Yandex

The Yandex sub-brand COMMO produces practical and inexpensive accessories - covers, cables, chargers, power banks. In the spring, the range was replenished with the first headphones - Hover Earbuds. They have an original design, an attractive price, and, in the end, this is Yandex - already enough arguments to get to know the new product better. What the headphones turned out to be - we tell in the review.

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Appearance and equipment
• Connection and control
• sound
• autonomy
• Results

Specifications

Appearance and equipment

The packaging of Hover Earbuds is shameless - a minimalistic cardboard box in the brand's signature grey-green color. Inside are instructions in a small envelope, a case with headphones and two charging cables: USB‑C to USB‑C and USB‑A to USB‑C.

The cables are small and for some reason purple. The very fact of having a pair at once is pleasant: you won’t need to pick up an adapter and suffer from recharge from ultrabooks, where there is only USB‑C.

The case produces a wow effect: the case is very thin and completely made of metal covered with matte paint. It is made with high quality and in the hand it feels like a monolithic weighty bar. There is no hint of play or assembly problems.

Do not open the case with one hand, the lid must be hooked up by the notch in front. Below it are four LEDs that indicate the battery charge level. When recharged headphones only the lights are on at the edges.

Inside the case there are two "droplets" with a flat leg. Each has an LED to indicate the charge, and on the left there is also a round blue label. It looks like a button that you just want to press. In fact, this is what the manufacturer calls "a thoughtful design that will help distinguish the left earpiece from the right."

This spot has no functional load, but we will talk about this later. Let's get back to the look: our headphones are made of gray-green matte plastic. There is also an option in milky color with a yellow identification mark.

The headphones themselves are light, but not for everyone, since their main part with the sound guide is quite small - for a shallow fit. That is, the leg, which will rest against auriclewhen you want to move the earpiece closer to your ear canal.

It is clear that this is a purely individual feature. But if Hover Earbuds still fit you and sit like a glove, then you can walk in them all day, only occasionally putting them away for charging. They are really very light and almost imperceptible.

Connection and control

Hover Earbuds connect via Bluetooth 5.2 to Android and iOS devices without applications. To turn on and pair, you need to remove the film from the charging contacts of the headphones. After the first time, they will connect automatically when you open the case cover.

Sometimes one earbud can connect to a sound source while the other does not. To fix the problem, you have to return the earpiece to the case, close the lid and try pairing again. This is a well-known "disease" of ultra-budget models, although recently it has become less and less common.

The headphones are controlled using taps on the outer surface of the leg, and these should not be touches, but confident taps. And yes, you need to hit the central part of the leg, no matter how much you want to press the round blue mark.

In theory, headphones should recognize the following actions:

• pressing any of the headphones - pause / play;
• hold on the right earpiece - increase the volume;
• hold on the left earpiece - volume down;
• double click on the right earpiece - next track;
• double click on the left earpiece - the previous track;
• triple click on the right earpiece - call the voice assistant;
• triple click on the left earpiece - turn on the game mode with a minimum delay.

Why in theory: because there are problems with recognizing touches, and the more complex the action, the more errors. About a third of the clicks go by, so you have to calculate some kind of interval between touches just to switch track.

Given the lack of an application, there is no way to reconfigure the actions - you have to adapt. Or you can just score and reduce the number of interactions with the touchpad.

Here we note that Hover Earbuds do not have position sensors, so the music is not paused when you remove the headphones. They will play even while in the case until you close it.

sound

The headphones are not in-ear, so you should not count on any sane bass: there is no isolation here, but for some users this may even be a plus. You will definitely hear everything that is happening around.

The sound itself can be called background and even detached, as if there is no direct contact with the sound source. At the same time, the mids are clearly overstated, and the highs are absolutely inexpressive.

Listening to music at full volume with Hover Earbuds is definitely not worth it. Drums and basses begin to "crunch", and strings go into some very narrow and too sonorous range.

In short, with something calm, background and at medium volume in the headphones - it's hardly tolerable. But if you want to listen to something bright and at least slightly pumping, this is definitely not a task for Hover Earbuds.

As for the headset mode, everything here is acceptable for headphones in the budget segment. In simple conditions without ambient noise, it will be more or less comfortable to receive and make calls.

autonomy

On a single charge, the headphones work a little longer than 5 hours. The case will allow you to feed them a couple more times, especially since it will take only an hour. The case itself requires 2 hours to recharge.

There is also an automatic shutdown of the headphones if they have not been connected to a sound source for 3 minutes. After they can be revived with a long tap on the touchpad.

Results

Let's start with the positives: cool metal case, minimalistic design, fast charging. That's all. Ease and ease of use is a very individual moment, so we will take it out of the brackets.

And now about the cons: unstable connection when removed from the case, control problems, mediocre sound even for the budget segment. By the way, about the segment.

Initially, Hover Earbuds were sold for 4,990 rubles, but at a discount they were given for 3,990 rubles. Now they have fallen in price to 2,990 rubles. And this is still not a very attractive price tag, given the too high competition among budget solutions:

• if you want to buy "droplets", there are Xiaomi Redmi Buds 4 Lite, which cost cheaper than 2,000 rubles;
• if they arrange “plugs”, then you can take Realme Buds Air 3S for 2 490 rubles or even Xiaomi Redmi Buds 3 Pro with the ANCs that cost 4 324 rubles - approximately like COMMO without a discount;
• more can be considered Huawei Freebuds SE behind 3 499 rubles, which in terms of form factor are something between in-ear and in-ear headphones.

If you are unpretentious in terms of sound or you just like the design of the case and the earbuds themselves, then you can try Hover Earbuds. Outwardly, they are unlikely to disappoint you.

Buy COMMO Hover Earbuds