u/mongchacha

Just wanted to give my thoughts on these.

I use an Alpaka Elements Travel backpack (discontinued) as my EDC. Austere Mfg came up on my radar shortly after I got the bag and I was eager to upgrade my backpack, while giving it a bit of personalization. I bought 4 ladder locks - 2 for the shoulder straps and 2 for the load lifters.

Installation should be easy if you have the pliers they always show on their videos. I didn't have those, but i had a non-abrasive steady platform on which to hammer and steel pins that would allow me to hammer precisely onto the ladder pins' heads. A little tricker, but I managed to successfully get them installed.

After installation, I was super pleased - they looked awesome. Operation was very smooth, as well.

I do have one critical thing to say, however, after having used them for about a year: I always felt like i had to adjust them often. Like, daily. I tested their holding strength to see if there was any visual slippage under constant tension. The were solid. I'm guessing that the slipping is only happening when the straps are loose and/or when the angle of the straps to the ladder pins are at any angle less than 180.

I mean, a quick cinch every time I put the bag on isn't so bad, I suppose. Overall, I still like them.

I'm curious about others' experiences with these...

Got these on Saturday and set them all up to use…but I’ve been dealing with a weird issue where the left bud does not charge in any sort of consistent manner.

I also recently noticed that the left side would randomly connect to my devices, even when they are inside of a closed case, so that might have something to do with it. So, after discovering this, I disassociated these earbuds from the only two devices that I’ve ever connected them to, and the charging issues still persist.

I connected them back to my device last night to give them another try and use them until they were at about 20% and then I popped them back into the case. The right side charged very quickly - would say in about 20 minutes, the right bud was back in the 90% range or higher. But the left side did not change at all.

But to clarify, the issue isn’t that it doesn’t charge at all, but that its charging behavior is very inconsistent. And when charging does happen, it’s extremely slow and only in situations where the case is not being charged.

I’ve done a hard reset two times and this didn’t seem to solve the issue. I did reach out to customer support and I’ve gotten a couple of automated responses so far (normal) and waiting for an actual person to help troubleshoot. But I’m also pretty tech savvy when it comes to these types of peripherals and I feel like I’ve exhausted all of the possible troubleshooting steps that tech-support might suggest.

At this point, I’m not really looking for a solution, but I’m just wondering if anybody is dealing with the same issue. I’m actually going to return these and have already re-purchased another one because I figured that would get me a replacement much quicker than having to deal with customer support.

So, I’ve only had them for a day…but I think there’s something wrong with mine. In terms of the way they operate and sound, no issues. But what I did notice is that my left earbud does not seem to want to charge in any sort of consistent manner. I placed them on my wireless charger after using them for a little bit and noticed that the left side always has a little bit more to go in terms of battery level. I would open and close the case just to see what the actual percentage number was and saw that it was incrementally climbing, so I left it in there. Sure enough this morning both buds were at 100%. So I use them for a little bit while I was going through my morning routine and use them to about 60%. I then pop them both back into the case and went to go do something else. I checked back in about 20 minutes and the right side was at 100% while the left side did not charge at all.

I’ve already submitted a ticket to soundcore support, but I was just wondering if anybody was having the same issue as me.