A while back I bemoaned the lack of high-end bluetooth earpieces. I came to the conclusion at that time that my Jumbl receiver with cheap earbuds might just be good enough, and that was where my search ended. At the time, anyway.
Unfortunately, my Jumbl stopped charging a few weeks ago. At first I'd hoped that it was just that the charging indication light wasn't working but, alas, this was not the case. Now, to be clear, this was not the first generation device I wrote about back in 2015, but a more recent version I'd purchased since. As I noted in that original article, the first version had a proprietary charger - it looked like something you would use to charge an old Nokia flip phone. The newer ones use micro-usb to charge, which is far more convenient. I'd since placed the newer one into regular service, and kept the older one at my desk for calls at home (where I would be much less likely to lose the charger).
I've been happy with the Jumbl (although some users writing reviews on Amazon do appear to have had similar problems with devices simply stopping charging), so I popped open the Amazon app to order another. And I did, but while I was there I also perused Amazon's other options and suggestions, and came across this HonShoop earpiece:
I'd never actually heard of HonShoop, but aside from my brief flirtation with Jawbone, I'm by no means a Bluetooth earpiece aficionado. It had good reviews, had noise cancelling features, and an on-device mute button, all for about $30. Seemed a good shot. And, thus far it is working well: sound quality is good, even in a noisy car, battery lasts about a week under my normal use, it's got multiple earpiece adapters to fit even my tiny, deformed ears... etc.
And I absolutely loved the fact that it had its own mute button. Turning on mute on the phone - a definite must-do thing when on a conference call in a car - seems considerably more challenging than simply tapping a button on your ear. And this works well, with the only downside being that the device wants to remind you that it is on mute every minute or so, and that audible notification - "mute on" - can block out portions of the conversation.
All of this is why I sat down this morning to write a review on the device - a couple of weeks in I'm pretty happy with it. Seemed reasonable enough, right? However, it appears the device is no longer available on Amazon. Based upon reviews, I'm not the only person to have ordered it within the last few months, so it's not as if there was an indication that it was a product at the end of its life, but there you have it. Perhaps I should have done more homework, but a google search after the fact finds that HonShoop appears not to have its own web presence. The devices are available from a couple of other outlets in addition to Amazon, but not directly from the manufacturer.
There are other (newer) versions of the headset, slightly different in apperance, available from the same company, and one or two others that appear physically identical to those with other company names attached to them (this seems not that unusual for such products on Amazon). The best I can say now is that if they are of the same design and build quality, and if they operate similar software, and if they have similar battery life, etc, the HonShoop earpieces are worth looking into.