One Bud Flatlines

Just over a week ago, on runs leading up to a rare business trip, one of my Galaxy Buds+ earbuds starts refusing a charge, the left earbud.  I did all sorts of things to try and get it working again, from cleaning it, to resetting it...jiggling it in its case trying to trigger the green charging light...but nothing works.

I decide to pack both my failing Buds+ and my new Buds Pro.

The funny thing is that I have not been willing to run with my newer buds...partly due to how much more expensive they are (though mine was included in the price of my S24 Ultra), but mostly because of how much I have liked my Buds+.  Yes, I am the same guy who bitched and moaned when Samsung dropped the headphone jack from the Galaxy series of phones, but my Buds+ have outlasted any of the wired headsets that shipped with my phones over the years, likely reduced the wear and tear on my SPIbelts (since nothing needs to protrude from the0 zipper pouch), and I no longer worry about tugging on a wire pinched to my chest shirt (lost many clips).  

I really appreciate the Bud Pro's active noise cancelling...works well to filter out the portable AC in my home office when I need to join an online meeting during a hot day, to listen to alternate content when my wife is watching a show I'm not interested in...and I loved using them during my recent five hour flights.  I do not plan to use the noise cancelling while running (too dangerous...I don't even hear my foot falls), but I fully expect they will last longer (a Bud+ dying during a run had been a pretty rare thing until now).

For this morning's run, though, I somehow tricked one of my dying Bud+ to give me one more run.  It came back to life with what appeared to be a 100% charge, but I decided to run with it while it was actively connected with my phone.  Much to my surprise, it lasted the entire 8 mile run...but it didn't look like it would.  15 minutes into my run, it had already dropped to 32%.  30 minutes later, it was down to 28%.  An hour into my run, a really strange thing happened...the charge went up to 33%!  But that was a short-lived gain as the watch dropped back to 27% over the next half hour.  When I finally got home, the bud's charge was -1% (yes, below zero), but it was still playing audio. I returned it to its case at 10:40am on August 18, 2024.

That would be the last time I ever heard audio from the left earbud.  It would never accept another charge.  Even worse, the bud would rapidly drain the case's battery (it was so bad, that I thought the case was failing).  But the right bud continues to hold a charge and, with only the right bud in the case, the case still provides a week worth of charging before it needs to be plugged in.

I continue to run with a single bud and will continue to do so until it dies.  And then I will consider running with my Buds Pro.