HyperX released the Cloud Alpha Wireless gaming headphones in April of 2022 and our friends
over at Wired presented us with a puzzle: “How did HyperX’s engineers squeeze 300+
hours of battery life into this thing?”
By comparison, most over ear headphones land somewhere in the 30-50 hour region meaning
these headphones are up to 10x more efficient.
We.
Are.
Intrigued.
We tested these, we ran them for about 65 hours—almost three days straight!— and
they still had some 260+ hours of life left.
At that rate you could listen for almost two weeks before needing to recharge.
To say it another way, it’s the equivalent of listening to “Call me maybe” exactly
62,790 times on one charge!
How is this possible?
Well the exterior holds some clues; no lights, no gimmicks - not even Active Noise Cancellation.
There's a detachable external microphone but that's it.
Maybe minimalism in function can explain the spectacular run time.
Let’s see what’s inside this thing.
The ear cushions come off easily enough.There’s a thin mesh layer secured by double sided
tape to protect the drivers.
It’s easily removed by carefully peeling it back.
Next we undo the four Phillips screws.
The cups aren’t even glued down - just apply a little force to separate it from the body.
So far so good.
Here’s the first piece of the long life puzzle, the battery is on the larger side.
At 5.5 Wh, this battery is larger than average, but there's no sign of battery innovation
here.
As a comparison, the HyperX Cloud Flight can be fitted with a 5.5 Wh battery and gets about
30 hours of playtime while on the other end of the spectrum the Audio Technica ATH-S700BT
uses a 0.9 Wh battery and gets about 6 hours of playtime.
The large battery certainly helps but it's not the answer to this puzzle so we’ll have
to look elsewhere.
Let’s check the other ear-cup.
Remove the foam cover and the 4 Phillips screws.
This side is housing the motherboard held in place by three Phillips 0 screws but no
more battery cells, so 5.5 Wh is all we have to work with.
Impressive.
We wanted to know if any of the IC chips were responsible for the power savings.We sent
pictures of the circuit board to one of our friends for chip ID and this is what we received.
Sure enough, newer chips are being used, all of which are optimized for ultra low power
applications.
The DA7212 dialog semiconductor in particular uses newer generation amplifiers that are
up to 70% more efficient.
HyperX are by no means the first to use these chips, it’s just one more power saving strategy
that eventually adds up to that 300+ number.
Here’s a theory: A larger than average battery - A super lean design - combined with the
latest power efficient chips.
This is probably why this thing can run for 300 hours on a charge.
A theory’s all good and well but let’s run some tests on a few headphones to flesh
these ideas out.
First up, the Sony WH-H800.
These headphones are rated for around 28 hours play time.
They come with Active Noise Cancellation, or ANC, which can be disabled with the push
of a button.
Here’s the headphones playing white noise with ANC on.
It’s drawing around 32mA.
And here it is with ANC off drawing 26mA.
So ANC uses up power, this isn't surprising, but to see how much power it draws is interesting.
Now the 6mA difference when ANC is activated might not seem like much but it’s the difference
between 28 hours playtime and 34.5 hours playtime on a 3.3 Wh battery.
That’s a difference of around 20%.
Let’s take a look at the HyperX.
We need to get to the battery leads to place our equipment in line with the battery so
we can measure the draw while the headphones are running.
They’re drawing a measly 4.45mA!
Under ideal conditions, this battery could last over 330 hours.
That’s barely shy of 2 weeks of continuous playback.
This is truly impressive.
We went ahead and performed these same power tests on a pair of Beats Solo 3 headphones.
These headphones drew our attention because they have a 40 hour battery life on a 1.5
Wh battery.
In theory, these headphones would run for over 150 hours on a 5.5 Wh battery, which
is the capacity of the battery in the HyperX.
They’re also equally minimalistic, foregoing any lights, ANC, or other features.
The Beats Solo 3 has been optimized for efficiency, though notice how the power fluctuates wildly
between 7.5mA and 16mA.
It averaged to about 9.5mA during our tests which is around twice as much as the HyperX
headphones.
That’s still half as much as most of its competitors.
In conclusion, it isn’t sorcery, just purposeful design decisions aimed at optimizing battery
life.
Well that’s the fleshed out theory at least.
We’ve reached out to HyperX for confirmation and we’ll let you know if they decide to
spill the beans.
On the repairability side, we think HyperX deserves credit for figuring out how to significantly
extend the battery life of its product.
Regardless of your daily use, the battery in these headphones have the potential to
last up to 10x longer than its competitors.
But here's the rub, the useful life of the battery will end and when that time comes,
the replacement of this particular battery is going to be painful if you don’t know
how to solder or if you don't have the equipment readily available.
The long battery life is great but it should have been paired with an easily replaceable
design.
The same can be said for the motherboard.
The leads from the right earcup are soldered onto the board which means replacement of
the board would again require some delicate soldering.
Connectors of some sort would have been the repair friendly solution here.
Those issues aside, it was a cinch to get into the headphones.
We’re especially impressed that HyperX avoided using glue anywhere other than on the drivers
where it was absolutely necessary.