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Wallet-friendly wireless earbuds achieve Kickstarter funding in half a day

If high prices have held you back from investing in wireless earbuds, the cheap new FireFlies might match your budget.

Justin Yu Associate Editor / Reviews - Printers and peripherals
Justin Yu covered headphones and peripherals for CNET.
Justin Yu
2 min read
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The FireFlies are the latest wireless earbuds to hit the big time on Kickstarter.

FireFlies Audio

There's no shortage of wireless earbuds out there right now -- especially on Kickstarter. The latest to raise funding are the FireFlies, a pair of completely cord-free earbuds that you can order today for the lowest price we've seen in the category, just $79 (about £60 or AU$105) for early backers while supplies last.

The left and right earpieces connect to each other via Bluetooth, which then connect to your phone using the same technology.

There's nothing new about the FireFlies' connectivity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since none of the ones I've tried so far have been able to play audio without dropping the signal. If the FireFlies can hold a connection between the earbuds, I'm in.

The company says the battery lasts about three hours and they come with a small charging pod that can boost the battery life back up to 100 percent three additional times. In other words, you can get 12 total hours of playback if you travel with the charging pod fully juiced.

The only drawback I can see right now that is that there's no microphone built in, so you can't answer phone calls. Additionally, they don't offer extra pass-through features or activity tracking like the Bragi Dash does, but the FireFlies cost significantly less so the trade-off makes sense.

Plenty of people have been impressed: The company blasted past its funding goal within 12 hours of posting the Kickstarter page, so early backers can expect to receive their FireFlies by the end of September 2016.

The final retail price will be $199, which works out to about £155 or AU$105. Head over to the FireFlies Kickstarter page for more details.

Editors' note: CNET's reporting on crowdfunding campaigns is not an endorsement of the projects or their creators. Contributing to a crowdfunded project comes with risk. Before contributing to any campaign, read the crowdfunding site's policies, such as those for Kickstarter and Indiegogo, to learn more about your rights (and refund policies, or the lack thereof) before and after a campaign ends.