Yevo’s app – companion to the newly released Yevo 1 truly wireless earbuds – is a bit of a conundrum. It’s a simple app, with singular purpose, that’s plagued by over-design and needly complexity.
Design
I’m going to keep this short; the seven (!) horizontal pages of functionality in the app – Yevo 1, Battery, Touch Settings, Balance, EQ, Bass Booster, and Audio Transparency – could easily be reduced to three tabs (Status, Settings, and Sound)or a vertical list of collapsible line items using the same categories. Beyond this easily-remedied-but-still-obnoxious design flaw, the Yevo Companion App looks fine; clean lines, high resolution images, and smooth performance throughout the app make it a well-crafted app – if poorly conceived. In sum; aesthetically pleasing, organizationally a mess.
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Functionality
As mentioned above, there are a whoppin’ seven pages of settings to sift through in the Yevo app. They are as follows;
- Yevo 1: Literally just a screen that says Yevo 1. Also tells you if the device is connected. Utterly, utterly superfluous.
- Battery: Displays the current battery life, both as a percentage and as a numerical value. You can also turn the device off from this screen.
- Touch Settings: This section of the app is actually pretty interesting; from here you can remap the gesture controls of the touch sensor on the earpieces. This is a particularly unique feature because not many headsets – and certainly not many wireless earbuds – allow you to manipulate the functionality of the inputs, let alone via software. This screen uses a drag-and-drop interface to allow you customize the functions. With 8 different functions and 8 different gestures, you should have no trouble finding a configuration that fits your taste.
- Balance: Shift the intensity of the audio to the right or left earpiece. No other functions.
- EQ: This is the equalizer screen, where you can choose from six presets – Default, Electronic, Hip Hop, Acoustic, Pop/Rock, and R&B. It’s handy, but a Custom setting with sliders to customize the sound of your audio would be even better.
- Bass Booster: Enable or disable the Software Driven Bass Enhance. That’s it.
- Audio Transparency: This is a nifty feature – toggle and adjust Audio Transparency, or the amount of sound from the outside world you want to hear. This allows you to listen to music while at the same time still maintaining awareness of the world around you – which, as someone that prefers to put on a headset to escape said world, confounds me. But I’m sure someone less…isolationist would find it to be very useful!
While all of this is neat, and it’s nice to be able to tweak the settings of the earphones, the companion app simply doesn’t offer any truly must-have functionality. That said, though, it’s a pretty cool feeling to be able to make a headset truly yours – especially one as tiny as a pair of earbuds.
Get It
Available for free on the Google Play Store, the Yevo companion app is currently sitting at a rather disappointing 1.8 rating, albeit with only 8 reviews. A few of those users have complained about missing or useless functionality, and one even complained that the app made his left earpiece stop working.
For what it’s worth, both my headset and the app have worked perfectly for me – despite the design issues above.