Skip to main content

UE Fits review: The most comfortable wireless earbuds

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds
UE Fits review: The most comfortable wireless earbuds
MSRP $249.00
“Though pricey, their custom molds could be the answer for hard-to-fit ears.”
Pros
  • Ultra comfortable and secure fit
  • Very good passive sound isolation
  • Sweat resistant
  • Customizable EQ and controls
Cons
  • Expensive
  • No ANC or transparency modes
  • No wireless charging

Despite having a long history of producing top-notch wired earbuds for professional musicians — known by the more serious label “in-ear monitors” — Ultimate Ears (UE) has never created a set of true wireless earbuds for everyday folks. Until recently.

The $249 UE Fits attempt to solve one of the most frustrating parts of wearing any earbuds: That feeling of having something wedged into your ear.

With special gel-filled silicone eartips that UE claims can be custom-molded to your ears with just a bit of light and heat, the Fits might just be the last set of earbuds you ever buy. I gave them a spin to see how closely they live up to that potential.

Design

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The first thing you notice when you open the box is the unusual shape of the UE Fits. They look like tiny plastic batons. If you can make your peace with that shape from an aesthetics point of view, there are several benefits to the design.

The sticklike shape makes them super easy to grab. This helps with getting them in and out of their charging case and, more importantly, in and out of your ears.

Having a stem that protrudes from the bottom places the microphones just a little closer to your mouth, which should, in theory, deliver better call quality. Finally, they offer a larger surface area for tap controls.

The charging case lacks a wireless charging option, but it has a smooth, rounded profile that’s just small enough to be pocketed. There’s no LED indicator on the outside, so you’ll need to open the case or check the UE Fits app to see whether it’s fully charged.

Get that fit

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

So how about their marquee feature, the customized fit? Let me start by saying that even before I went through the very short process that adapts the eartips, I knew these were going to be super-comfortable earbuds.

Unlike virtually every other set of true wireless earbuds you can buy, the UE Fits don’t rely on a round or oval flared silicone sleeve to seal your ear canal. Instead, their eartips aren’t “tips” at all. They cover the entire portion of the earbud that sits in your ear, effectively sealing your ear canal without exerting any pressure on the ear canal itself.

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live tried a similar approach, but without the use of custom-fit eartips. We didn’t love them.

The customization process — which takes less than a minute — uses heat and light generated by the earbuds themselves to mold the eartips to your ears. They get quite warm during the procedure, but not uncomfortably so.

Once they were fully baked, I found the earbuds exceptionally comfortable. No pressure points, no feeling like I had a small creature burrowing into my ear canal.

The only downside is that the customization process only works once. If the included medium eartips aren’t the right size (or if you accidentally mess up the fit process), you’ll need to buy the small or large tips for $30 each — very pricey for such small chunks of silicone.

Ultimate Ears sent along a set of small and large eartips to try, so I repeated the process with my daughter, whose small ears have always made getting a good fit tricky. The left ear worked out perfectly, but for some reason, the right ear still wasn’t a great fit. UE might need to consider making an even smaller set of eartips.

Sound quality

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

The UE Fits are pleasingly balanced and offer good bass response. Out of the box, the sound signature is a little on the flat side, but there are lots of EQ presets in the UE Fits app that let you tweak the sound considerably, including the ability to add your own custom EQ adjustments.

With a bit of fiddling, I was able to get a really satisfying and punchy mix that worked well with plenty of music genres, like pop, hip-hop, rap, and even some vocal-centric jazz.

Noise isolation

The UE Fits don’t have active noise cancellation, but because of their excellent fit, I found the passive noise isolation was more than enough to keep loud external sounds from interfering with my music and podcasts.

Unfortunately, the Fits don’t have a transparency mode either, so it can be hard to have a conversation unless you pull out an earbud. Likewise, when on phone calls, it can be hard to hear your own voice.

Battery life

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

UE claims eight hours per earbud and a total of 20 hours when you include the charging case. That total time might not be much to brag about, but eight hours between charges is very good — much better than the AirPods’ five hours. A 10-minute quick charge will give you an extra hour of playtime.

Controls

UE Fits custom-fit true wireless earbuds.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

You get the option of a single- or double-tap for each earbud, and the UE Fits app lets you pick from several options for each of these gestures, including play/pause, track skip forward/back, and volume. You can trigger your phone’s voice assistant, but this is only accessible from the double-tap gesture. You can use each earbud independently if you want.

These tap gestures are my least favorite part of the UE Fits. The earbuds seem to really struggle to recognize the tap sequences consistently. Double-taps were better recognized than singles, which were hardly ever recognized. I reached out to Ultimate Ears to figure out why this was happening, but the company’s reps could only suggest that I should check for the latest firmware (which the Fits were already using).

Call quality

Calling using the UE Fits was acceptable. They struggled to cancel out loud sounds, but that’s true of a lot of wireless earbuds. As I mentioned above, the lack of transparency or side-tone features was a bigger problem for me than the actual quality of the calls.

Conclusion

At their full regular price of $249, I think the UE Fits are too expensive for what they offer. But they’ve had their price reduced regularly since launch, and at the moment, they’re just $178 if you buy them directly from Ultimate Ears. That’s still a lot of money considering what you can get from similar or lower-priced alternatives from Jabra, Soundcore, or Beats. But if you’ve had trouble getting a decent fit from regular earbuds, the UE Fits might well be worth the extra cash. They are definitely the most comfortable earbuds I have worn so far.

Editors' Recommendations

Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…
Best noise-canceling earbuds for 2023: from Sony, Beats, Jabra, and more
Beats Studio Buds+ in case with lid open.

It doesn't matter if you're the kind of true wireless earbud user that needs active noise cancellation (ANC) so your music is as pure as possible on your commute, or if you're the type that basically wears them all the time and fine-tunes their ANC and transparency modes for full control of your life's sounds — calls, conversations, you're a few steps form being a cyborg.

We're not here to judge you, but we are here to judge the vast and ever-changing world of ANC earbuds and help you find the set that work best for your needs and budget. ANC tech has also come a long way, and there are new features emerging all the time. For example, custom ANC and transparency modes are making personalization better than ever, just as new sensor tech is allowing the latest earbuds to analyze our ears and the noises around us to tailor a listening experience we've never heard before.

Read more
Skullcandy’s new $20 wireless earbuds get 20 hours of battery life
Skullcandy Smokin Buds True Wireless.

What can you expect from a $20 set of wireless earbuds? More than you probably expect, according to Skullcandy. The company's latest model, the Smokin' Buds True Wireless, boast an eight-hour battery life per charge, with a total of 20 hours when you include their charging case. That's a considerable bump up in longevity from Skullcandy's other budget earbuds, the Dime, which only last 3.5 hours on a charge, with 12 hours total.

The rest of the Smokin' Buds' features and specifications are fairly standard for the budget segment:

Read more
Technics’ new wireless earbuds let you connect three devices at once
Technics EAH-AZ80 in black.

Technics has released two new models of noise-canceling wireless earbuds, and along with the usual improvements in things like sound quality and battery life, the EAH-AZ80 and EAH-AZ60M2 have a unique ability: they are the first wireless earbuds to expand Bluetooth Multipoint from two simultaneous connections to three. This could let you keep the buds connected to two smartphones and a laptop -- or possibly a laptop, a phone, and a TV -- without needing to disconnect and reconnect when you want to change the device you're listening to.

The two models share many features, including wireless charging, which makes its debut on Technics wireless earbuds this year. They're protected against some water exposure via their IPX4 rating, and they're equipped with wear sensors, which enable auto-pause and the playing of music when the earbuds are inserted or removed.

Read more