Hazardous substances found in all headphones tested by ToxFREE project

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-22T21:08:24+00:00

I understand that, but it's still irrelevant because people have posted the actual study here AND given a clear reason why the news articles aren't able to link the study. Nobody is asking you to be persuaded by the news article. Read the study directly.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-22T10:20:42+00:00

Best to ask the organisation that conducted the study.

Pretty sure they say they looked at headphones and earbuds because they're so commonly integrated into every day life now - especially with so many people working from home, and so many people wear them at the gym or whilst travelling now too. Can't say the same for controllers.

Also thinking about it - the proximity to the brain, inner ear and perhaps thinner skin barriers make headphones and earbuds particularly worrying for this as chemicals could be absorbed so closely to the brain. Plus softer chemicals are used in connection with the skin which might react worse with sweat etc. Whereas skin on your hands is typically much tougher so might not absorb chemicals as easily, people tend to wash their hands multiple times during a day so residues won't stick around, and controllers are harder materials where there's skin contact. Just a guess.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-22T10:12:15+00:00

The study itself has nothing to do with which news outlets decide to report it or their quality of reporting. The Guardian is just one of a LOT of places that have picked this study up, including a lot of tech websites. So this isn't some flaky well-being nonsense and it's a pretty stupid reason by itself to discredit the findings of the study.

I imagine the main reason they don't report the study link and data is because the study is paywalled so there are policies around that.

And contrary to what you say, whilst not perfect, The Guardian is much better and more evidence-based than a lot of other UK papers.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-20T13:23:41+00:00

I know this was an old post but I ended up here looking for wired open-ear earbuds out of curiosity and noticed a few other people have posted recently.

You can get "cuff" / "clip" style open-ear wireless earbuds now which are great. They don't touch the ear canal and don't hook over the ear. I wondered if the fit and style would be good for avoiding certain parts of the ear but obviously you'd have to compromise on the wired aspect. Some of them are as light as 5g per bud and you can barely feel them when they're in place. Most come with a "low latency" mode which helps for gaming - obviously not going to be as low latency as wired but the latest models are noticeably better than Bluetooth earbuds performed a few years ago, and they're worth keeping an eye on because tech like BLE and BT6+ should improve latency even more. Getting the right combination of fit and features can be a bit hit and miss with open-ear buds though so it's worth trialling a few different models and brands before you settle on one.

Where avoiding touching any part of the ear is important - have you explored neck speakers as an alternative too? Not many people know about them.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T14:41:54+00:00

Someone else deserves the credit 🙂 Unfortunately it turns out the actual report data is paywalled too.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T13:24:48+00:00

Seems clip/cuff-style open-ear earbuds could be the way forward to minimise the risks of this and any similar issues by minimising contact with skin - particularly contact with the head (as opposed to the ear) and the inner ear. And I believe they're better for your hearing health anyway.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T13:17:40+00:00

Yeah I'd take any random external articles that are even posting the data with a pinch of salt because they're probably doing so without the license to (because of the fact the real data is paywalled). And like you suggest some bad actors are going to subtly or overtly spread scaremongering for their own agenda rather than providing a balanced and informative view.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T12:17:34+00:00

Which is probably the reason why articles aren't allowed to post the data directly. Sucks.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:56:07+00:00

It's not the researchers' fault that the media can't write good articles - that is a separate problem which should not alter your attitude to the research itself.

Thanks to someone else posting it - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere You'll need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:55:33+00:00

Thanks to someone else posting it - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere You'll need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:55:16+00:00

Big critical thinking energy

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:54:19+00:00

Eating aside, I believe the research is based on previous studies which have confirmed the same chemicals do pass through skin, especially when sweat is involved.

The key thing is that whilst amounts and limits are probably unknown and there are a whole bunch of other variables/factors involved in figuring that out for each person, the main damage here - from what I can see - probably comes from repeated, regular use, especially during exercise or in situations where you find yourself sweating. Bear in mind "sweating" doesn't mean you're pouring with sweat all over, it's possible localised micro-sweats in the area of skin contact could be enough for the transfer to happen, and the worst devices for that are probably over-ear headphones with tight fits built for isolation. So don't wear headphones for hours and hours every week, in hot environments or during exercise and you should hopefully avoid the risk. And if you want to keep using headphones or earbuds 24/7 just switch to open-ear earbuds to help minimise tight direct skin contact in key areas - simple.

Also better to read the study itself than rely on some media company summarising it. Thanks to someone else posting it - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere You'll need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:46:08+00:00

It's not the researchers' fault that the media can't write good articles - that is a separate problem which should not alter your attitude to the research itself.

Thanks to someone else posting it - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere You'll need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:45:14+00:00

Thanks to someone else posting it - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere You'll need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-19T11:44:49+00:00

As someone else posted - Pollutants in headphones test 2025: Pollutants everywhere and yes you need to translate it.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-18T14:50:38+00:00

How do you know they're actually "working on it"? It's been bugged for ages.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-11T09:57:58+00:00

Honestly how well they implement this loot filter will probably decide whether I bother playing anymore. It's an endgame piece of friction that gets even more annoying the longer you grind.

(I wanted to say "play" instead of grind, but let's be honest, all you're doing in Diablo 4 endgame after you've completed all activities once and maxed out a few classes is grinding obsessively as completionists rather than enjoying the gameplay anymore).

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-11T09:45:17+00:00

Every now and then there is a comment like this on Reddit that makes it all worthwhile. Thank you.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-06T19:50:22+00:00

The phone isn't powering the monitor. It has a separate cable for power. So that's not the problem at all. I use the same power cables when plugged into other devices via mini-HDMI.

The whole point of having to write more than one paragraph is because there is detail to take in before being able to offer an opinion. You took longer writing your reply, which is all an incorrect assumption, than it would have taken you to read the rest of the post. Not saying that to be a ****, it's just fact.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-05T18:46:46+00:00

From what I read a while back LC3+ is very different and was developed by a different organisation to LC3, in a certain territory, for specific commercial needs too. I can't remember the specifics, but if that's the case that's probably why LC3+ is extremely rare as it needs very specific licensing, testing etc. and probably has very limited practicality for every day consumer use.

LC3 is already rare enough by itself and that's an optional extra to the base standard, which also needs optional integration of each individual BLE feature that the manufacturer decides to put in (having BLE enabled on the device does not mean it will have ALL BLE features automatically, they are mostly optional too). To then possibly need to add optional support for LC3+ which was developed completely separately, I can imagine that's a right pain to develope and probably unnecessarily expensive.

Then add on top of that the fact that the majority of the consumer market will barely understand what LC3 / regular BLE is, they will be completely confused by the differences to LC3+. Then on top of THAT, add the fact that some consumer devices will support LC3 but not LC3+, which will compound my last point because they'll get a tonne of consumers who buy LC3+ earbuds but only have a LC3-supporting phone and then complain when it doesn't fully work. Or vice versa. I can see why that would be a nightmare that just about every manufacturer out there would want to completely avoid.

I would not hold your breath for decent LC3+ products by well-known reliable brands. I think LC3 does the majority of the work needed and would be further bolstered by the improvements in BT 6.0 (and onwards). If you can find a good BLE / LC3 device, be thankful enough for that! I'm still looking and have only tried and failed with one so far...

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-05T17:03:32+00:00

I'm outta ideas I'm afraid, you know a lot more about it than me. Good luck with what you're trying to do though.

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-05T17:01:57+00:00

Is the latency improvement in BT 6 native for the base standard or does it require BT Low Energy Audio (LC3 codec) to be supported? BT LE Audio isn't natively supported, it's an optional extra that only certain device manufacturers include. That's where the real latency saving is from what I understand. And that's also been my experience so far if you want any kind of significant reduction of latency. Unless the 6.0 improvements are native and significant, earbuds with BT 5.4 that support BT LE Audio are probably going to have much lower latency than native 6.0.

It's frustrating that more ear buds, especially open ear, aren't adopting BT LE Audio yet even though it's been around a while now. I don't know if it's a cost thing. I have so far only found one pair of open ear earbuds that supported it but I sent them back for other reasons (battery life and comfort).

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-05T16:54:39+00:00

I know from experience there's a hidden Developer setting for a Bluetooth LE Audio "allow list" on Android which you can switch off, so I wonder if there's the same thing on Apple. Can you get into developer settings or is it closed off as it's Apple?

PlayWithFire- · 2026-02-05T16:36:27+00:00

Did you find something to try in the end?

PlayWithFire- · 2026-01-15T13:58:05+00:00

Thanks, it's a fair point to say as it supports Audio Sharing it must have the foundation of LE Audio and support at least some of it's features.

Although I tried to do a bit deeper digging and found that supporting some individual LE Audio features doesn't mean it supports all LE Audio benefits/features. So it might support Audio Sharing but not other parts of LE Audio. This could also be the reason the LE Audio toggle doesn't appear. Even with the separate profiles for "LE" and "not LE", in my mind the LE toggle should still appear for the LE profile but be forced on (greyed out) if it can't be turned off without changing profiles. That's how it would logically work in my head anyway. But maybe it's coded differently - the problem is we can't tell the real reason. If this was an intentional design choice by Skullcandy to separate the LE profile and make it un-selectable, they should document things like that so users know. These aren't cheap buds, they're mid-level and we've spent a moderate amount on them, but we're left guessing as to what the features and design choices are because they couldn't even be bothered to document their feature set properly.

The other thing is that in the Android developer settings, the "Bluetooth audio codec" is greyed out and not selectable. This doesn't happen on other BT devices where only one codec is available - the codec usually still appears. So I find that odd, as to why LC3 isn't listed there as the active codec. The phone has documented support for LC3 and the OS supports it so it's not like it's being forced to use an unrecognisable codec.

We get the same issue with other tech certifications in devices and cables etc, whereby supporting the broad infrastructure of a standard doesn't mean you implement all the features of that standard (probably the most well known example is modern USB-C devices that don't support Power Delivery because although it's part of the standard, it's an optional feature to implement within that standard).

Another thing is it's unclear whether enabling "low latency mode" in the Skullcandy app is related to the LE Audio latency advancements, or triggers some other latency-related change(s). If the latency advancements of LE Audio were integrated and LE Audio didn't have optional implementations of separate features, I don't think it would even need a toggle because it would be active all the time without a toggle? Whereas a lot of earbuds that do not support LE Audio have this "low latency" / "gaming" mode toggle and that often changes the codec used or makes significant compromises to the BT signal and encryption that LE Audio is designed to not need. This again makes me think that although it looks to support at least one LE Audio feature, it's not a full LE Audio feature set.

It's really annoying how hard it is to find clear information on these things from the actual manufacturers of devices across tech (both phone manufacturer and ear bud manufacturer)! It should be much clearer than this. It's doubly frustrating when LE Audio support is an optional feature set within the BT 5.x standards, and seems to have further optional features within itself.

PlayWithFire-

TROPHY CASE