REVIEW – The Alpha Audiotronics Skybuds are proof that a nice-looking box can hide a rough product. At $189.99, these wireless earbuds ask for flagship money and deliver bargain-bin results: shaky pairing, thin sound, and a companion app that can’t reliably find its own hardware.
Note: This Alpha Audiotronics Skybuds set was provided free of charge by Alpha Audiotronics for review. Alpha Audiotronics did not have a final say on the review and did not preview it before publication.
The Basics
The Skybuds are a truly wireless earbud set built around a compact charging case Alpha Audiotronics calls the Skydock. Beyond music and calls, they lean on a companion app for an Awareness feature that lets outside sound bleed through on purpose, plus a bud-finder tool for when they inevitably go missing. On paper it is a strong feature list. In practice, very little of it worked the way it was supposed to.
What You Get
- Skybuds left and right earbuds
- Skydock charging case
- Small, medium, and large replacement ear tips
- USB-A to Micro-USB charging cable
By the Numbers
- Price: $189.99
- Playback: about 3 hours per charge in testing
- Case charging: Micro-USB
- Charge indicator: 3-segment blue light on the case
- Controls: play/pause, track skip, answer calls (no onboard volume control)
- Companion features: Awareness pass-through audio, bud finder
Design and Build
The charging case, which Alpha Audiotronics calls the Skydock, holds the earbuds and packs its own battery to top them off while they’re stored inside. Both the case and the buds are made of what feels like fairly cheap plastic, which is a strange match for a $189.99 asking price. A small Micro-USB port on the bottom end handles charging, whether that’s off a computer or a wall plug.
Battery and Charging
A blue light on the front of the case blinks to signal pairing, pulses while it’s charging, and shows remaining charge by how many segments are lit: one bar for 0 to 33 percent, two for 34 to 66 percent, three for anything above that. Popping the case open reveals the hinge that holds the lid to the body, plain white plastic under the dark cap.
The buds slip easily into the case, and exposed contacts on each earbud meet matching contacts inside so they recharge off the case’s battery. In testing I got about three hours of continuous playback per charge. The charging itself was inconsistent, though. Over a few weeks, the time it took to fully top off the case and the buds swung wildly from one session to the next. The right earbud also always sits at a slightly lower charge than the left, since that’s the one handling the Bluetooth connection.
Fit, Setup, and Pairing
Fit was actually one of the high points. Once they’re in your ear, a slight twist locks the Skybuds in place, and in testing they never fell out, only needing an occasional nudge after a couple hours of continuous wear. They’re small and don’t stick out much. A tiny LED on each bud shows power, charging, and error states, and there’s almost always an error state to show.
Initial setup was an exercise in pure frustration. There’s one process for pairing the case and buds with the Skybuds app, and a completely separate process for pairing the unit over Bluetooth so it works as a normal audio device with a phone.
Over the course of several hours, nearly every attempt to pair the app with the hardware failed to find one or both earbuds. After trying the setup repeatedly, double-checking phone compatibility, and running through every troubleshooting tip available, the device finally paired with the app, at which point it took just as long again to get it paired over Bluetooth with the phone itself.
No matter what got tried, the pairing kept throwing errors: an “incorrect passcode” despite never entering one, or a flat “pairing was rejected” from one or both earbuds.
Sound Quality and App Features
Once both pairing sequences finally cooperated, the sound quality turned out to be the real letdown. Wireless earbuds in general aren’t known for stellar audio, but the Skybuds’ bass barely rose above a faint pop and the mids were mostly missing. A cheap pair of Philips wireless headphones on hand blew these away. The tinny, thin sound profile became tolerable with time, but it never made listening to music enjoyable. Calls fared better: voice came through clearly on both ends. Both earbuds have buttons for play/pause, track skip, and answering calls, but there’s no way to adjust volume from the buds themselves, and the buttons can be finicky, especially for anything that needs a press-and-hold.
The Skybuds app has a couple of ideas that were ahead of their time for wireless earbuds. Most earbuds rely on passive noise cancellation, meaning a snug fit naturally blocks outside sound. Skybuds add a feature called Awareness, which lets you dial in how much outside noise passes through so you can stay aware of your surroundings. Good idea on paper, but useless in practice. Awareness runs off the buds’ own mics, and on top of the already poor sound quality, there was a noticeable lag. The app lets you set the Awareness level, turn it off entirely, or switch to Adaptive mode, which kicks in automatically whenever music is paused. Another app feature is supposed to help locate missing Skybuds. Like everything else here, it’s inconsistent. The app repeatedly failed to find one or both buds, even when they were sitting right on top of the phone. If it worked reliably, it would be genuinely useful given how small and easy to lose these are.
What Could Be Better
Nearly everything here needs work. The dual pairing process is a genuine ordeal, sound quality falls well short of the price, charge times are unpredictable, and the two headline app features, Awareness and the bud finder, both work poorly enough to feel unfinished. For $189.99, none of this should still be a rough draft.
Final Thoughts
The Skybuds set out to be a premium truly-wireless earbud with smart extras layered on top, and came up short across the board: hardware build, sound quality, and app functionality all disappointed. Fit was the one genuine bright spot, locking in comfortably for hours without falling out. For a device priced this high, there are better options in every category these fall short on.
This isn’t the only one I’ve put through its paces. Check The Best Wireless Earbuds and Headphones I’ve Tested for the full lineup.
Price: $189.99
Where to buy: Alpha Audiotronics
What I like: Secure, comfortable fit that held up over hours of wear, call audio came through clearly, the Awareness concept is a good idea
What I don’t: Thin, bass-light sound quality for the price, unreliable dual pairing process, inconsistent charge times, Awareness and bud-finder features rarely work as advertised
