North America is full of brands that are a part of their every day. The Apples and Samsungs of the world have the market locked down when it comes to ecosystems. Beyond their phones, there are all kinds of accessories that are many consumers’ natural go-to simply for the ease of it. But there are brands out there who are innovating and are worthy of your attention. Our case in point, Xiaomi, with their latest flagship earbuds, the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro and the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi, the model that we are testing here.
The Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi comes with the earbuds, a charging case, a USB-C charging cable, additional tips should you need a different size and a user manual. The earbuds come equipped with 64mAh batteries (an upgrade from the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro’s 53mAh), with an additional 570mAh coming from the charging case, which is the same capacity for both models.
What is most important about the Wi-Fi model of the Buds 5 Pro, though, is that it uses Qualcomm’s S7 Pro chip and XPAN (Expanded Personal Area Network) technology to provide you with a superior connection to your phone than any Bluetooth connection can offer—It still can connect via Bluetooth, though. As of the launch, it only has Wi-Fi connectivity with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, but it will see expanded support in the future.
“What is most important about the Wi-Fi model of the Buds 5 Pro, though, is that it uses Qualcomm’s S7 Pro chip and XPAN (Expanded Personal Area Network) technology…”
The Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi weigh 5.6g per earbud and are incredibly comfortable. I am usually not one for earbuds with stems, but I found that these ones didn’t feel much different than earbuds with no stems, and Xiaomi’s controls for the Buds 5 Pro all reside on the stem, some reminiscent of other earbuds and some that are fairly unique. Swiping the stem up and down will control the volume, pausing/unpausing your audio comes with a pinch of the stem. A longer pinch will impact the noise cancellation.
As for battery life, the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi can last up to 8 hours on a single charge with up to 40 hours total when using the case. The earbuds can get up to 4.5 hours of battery life from a 10-minute charge in the case. It harkens back to a flight I took to Dubai, where my buds died less than half the flight in so I constantly swapped out the buds, charging one at a time, to keep being able to watch my movies.
With a couple of small breaks, I could have made the whole flight with buds in both of my ears. It’s also worth noting that the charging case is compatible with Qi wireless charging devices, which is incredibly convenient, particularly if you have one of those wireless charging stations that charge all of your devices.
“The Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi have great sound quality out of the box.”
The Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi have great sound quality out of the box. These are the only earbuds I have tried whose max volume was actually too loud for me. The Buds 5 Pro has a great bass presence without overdoing it and the high frequencies for vocal presence were crystal clear. They also avoid that trap that some headphones fall into where the mid-tones are too evenly balanced with the lows and highs, making the audio sound flat.
If what they give you out of the box is not quite what you are looking for, though, you can turn to the Xiaomi Earbuds app, which will open up your world when it comes to what you can do with the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi. First and foremost, you can activate a number of Audio effects, including Adaptive Sound, adjusting your sound depending on the shape of your ear canals; Adaptive Volume, which will auto-adjust the volume based on the ambient noise; and Audio Balance, which will tweak your EQ to your liking (without having a proper EQ to manually adjust frequencies.
Among these options is the Harman Audio EFX, built to provide smart EQ, a smart leveller and smart dynamics. The key to finding what works best for you is to go through the options while listening to whatever you listen to the most (music, podcasts, etc.) and swap between the options to find your ideal listening. No surprise to me the Harman Audio EFX won the day.
Another feature available on the application is the ability to search for your earbuds by triggering a tone from the app. It is faint, so don’t try using it in the middle of a busy street, but you’ll find it under your bed with little difficulty. You can also change what gestures do what and even record audio to your phone using your Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi as the microphone. This feature also allows for live translation with Xiaomi’s AI translation tool, currently limited in its compatibility but we’re also hoping to see this function expand to more hardware.
At $279.99 USD, the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi are definitely on the higher end in terms of earbuds created by a phone manufacturer. You will certainly find much more expensive earbuds from the bigger audio companies. I would say that, given its limited compatibility for its biggest selling point, being the first Wi-Fi earbuds, the price isn’t worth it until such time as you can utilize this amazing feature across a much wider variety of devices.
At this point, if you don’t have a Xiaomi 15 Ultra, you are really paying this price based on faith that the features that make the buds so expensive will make it to you.
