People sticking with audio jack phones, why is USB-C earphones not a solution?

Because it needs an extra dongle that isn't free and most headphones use an ordinary audio jack.

Charging while listening.

And above all, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

There's just exactly no upsides.

Among other things, a USB-C connector is less stable than a 3.5mm jack, and can twist the cable since the connector cannot spin.

Sure, it can do a lot of things, but there's no reason to break an existing standard if the proposed successor is inherently worse.

Downsides of usb-c headphones:

Bluetooth security risk surface, exposes your phone to more attacks. (Nobody has mentioned this yet)
Most/all phones have a single usb-c port. Charging and using headphones difficult
Usb-c port placement is awkwardly on bottom of phone while must headphone jacks are on top of the phone. Plugging in your headphones on the bottom of the phone with a dongle is awkward.
The entire process of using a usb-c dongle or using Bluetooth headphones makes the entire system more complicated. KISS (keep it simple). The more complexity there is that can go wrong, the worse the experience. If I'm taking a important conference call, I want my audio to just work.

Not directly related: the whole point of removing the headphone jack was to sell airpods. First apple, then android, and even fair phone. Each time the jack is removed to push sales of the branded Bluetooth ear buds. It's a user hostile move.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/apple-airpods-success

The excuse may be to save money, Space, water rating, but the reason is increased sales.

I personally still use a pixel 5A which had a headphone jack only because it's the B tier phone for markets where people are less likely to also buy the airpods.

The devices that you describe are incompatible with a standard that has been mature for 50 years.

The 3.5mm jack is everywhere, it is the standard. USB C is incredibly recent.

Put it this way, if you were to walk into a store and pick up any given electronic product with audio output, would you expect it to have an audio jack, or a USB C connector?

In your drawer full of random electric cables, how many have 3.5mm plugs in them vs usb a, micro, mini, or some propriety plug? And how many could you plug into a device and just...work?

So why do you accept devices that don't have this standard?? It is beyond me.

I am not an audiophile or anything but for these oems a headphone jack inclusion is probably pennys and wired is just superior sound, it's madness.

That said I use Bluetooth headphones mostly myself but that doesn't change the fact its inferior sound, something extra to charge and can add quite a bit of lag when playing games or other media.

Its a step backwards just to make a few pennys profit on a hundreds of pounds device. I think everyone should have the option to choose what they prefer.

USB headphones require new drivers constantly.
USB headphones are likely to use proprietary apps for basic features like noise cancellation.
Audio jacks use significantly less power/processing compared to USB.
Audio jacks do not hog usb bus lanes, which may or may not be an issue for mobile, but on PC it is.
USB headphones are in general significantly lower quality, because studio equipment uses 3.5mm or other standard jacks (XLR for microphones for example) as they cause the lowest interference.
USB introduces overhead latency which is a no-go for production use.

The fact that there is more than one "standard" for USB-C audio is enough to hate it.

Analog 3.5mm just works with everything. No dongles, no drivers, no "unsupported device", no batteries.

It. Just. Works.

Uses more power and it creates thermal strain on a single point-of-failure port if you want to both charge and listen to music with a poxy dongle.

All this “innovation” does is create more e-waste.

There's no reason to switch.

50 year old headphones are still basically fine except for the port changing.

I can't charge my phone and listen to stuff at the same time, and my headphone jack headphones work with every device but a new phone. Don't know why I would want to throw that convenience away all because Apple/every other manufacturer decided we should get rid of headphone jacks.

When companies began to drop the audio jack I was annoyed, but I figured I could just buy a converter. Which would be great if there were a universal standard for connecting audio through a USB C. There isn't. There aren't even just two competing approaches. There are all kinds of different setups that sometimes vary even within a single brand.

I found multiple adapter that said it supported my phone brand. It didn't work. I looked deeper and found some advice on adapters that would work with more recent phone. I bought one based on that and it worked, sort of. The audio quality was not great and it would occasionally just cut out for a second. My third try got me an adapter that work reliably, but the audio quality is still mediocre. My best headphones are all analog, but I have to use Bluetooth with my phone because it provides better audio.

The physical issues, particularly the connectors, guarantees that USB C will never work as well. The lack of standards for implementing it make finding compatible hardware a nightmare. And if you manage to get everything else figured out you end up with the kind of sound you can hear from an audio jack using a $5 set of earbuds. It provides no benefits to the user, only to the manufacturer.

Let's invert the question: what makes it worth the switch? If I'm going to change something, you have to prove why it's worth, not me proving why I shouldn't.

I have multiple dozens of headphones that have a normal headphone plug.

I can charge my phone while I listen to headphones without carrying multiple adapters.

We can maybe talk once we get more than 1 USB c connector on a phone. Maybe.

I fucking hate the whiny answer of "but my/most existing headphones had an aux so I don't like USB-C."

The biggest factor for me is that it simply makes it impossible to charge your phone and use wired headphones at the same time without a special splitter adaptor... Which itself is impossible to roll up with your headphones.

It's designed to be such an inconvenience to the point that you're actually just incentivized to buy wireless headphones. And since it was Apple, that of course meant their very expensive Airpods.

That said, I happily use wireless Bose headphones now anyway, but I did have to ditch my audio technicas for that reason.

i dont even use my jack much, i just fucking hate the lack of options. if my headphones are dead i can still use them with the jack, and i can plug into older cars that only have the jack without shuffling around for a dongle

taking away my options is taking away my service with phones, still using my galaxy s9+ till it dies

It seems like you are assuming that the only device that I want to use headphones with is my phone.

I'm a musician. I've got tons of audio equipment I've accumulated over decades, most of which use a typical analog headphone jack. So if I fully switched to USB-C or Bluetooth headphones, I would need to get a powered adapter of some kind that would then digitize what likely would have been a purely analog signal up until that point, just so it can be re-converted back to analog.

Or I could have sperate headphones just for my phone. Which seems silly.

So I took the 3rd option: got a phone with a headphone jack. The Xperia still has a micro SD card too.

Also I have dabbled in soldering circuits and doing basic repairs. I can easily replace most analog jacks and repair most cables. USB C... It's possible, and I will try to learn to work with it eventually, but it's always going to be more annoying to work with because it has many more, smaller pins.

And just when you have everything setup with USB-C, here comes the new connection standard, USB-D. Eliminating the audio jack is about planned obsolesce.

because it's already compatible with everything

i have a cheap pair of earphones in my pocket (which i'm prepared to lose). another by the door. a more expensive set of headphones upstairs. a speaker in the kitchen. and when i get in a friend's car or go to their house, i can just plug my phone in and it works without the aggravation of having to pair to their speaker

tell me, oh "you can just buy a dongle" people, what am i supposed to do? buy one and accept that i'll lose it all the time? buy 5 and keep one plugged into every 3.5mm i own and don't own?

plus, y'know - takes slightly more battery, hassle to pair, can't charge and use dongle, all the other obvious issues

I cant sleep without listening to podcasts & i charge the phone at night so this is one of the reasons why i was reluctant to upgrade my old phone.

When I inevitably had to upgrade I bought a USB C headphone/charging dongle for about €15. All good, I'd been worrying about nothing ...Until it broke within a few months so I had to go without podcasts for a few nights whilst I waited for the replacements to arrive (might as well be prepared & buy a spare right?). Guess what? The first replacement lasted a only few months again. So far, a lack of headphone jack has cost me an extra €45 inside of about 6 months. Absolutely ridiculous

Everyone's favourite old headphones not having a USB cable is likely to be the main reason.

I need a special adapter to charge my phone simultaneously

Also, I can't connect it without an adapter to my car, my headphones or my home cinema stereo

There are way more aux jack headphones out there, and you don't want your very high quality headphones suddenly be forced to be considered obsolete just because tech companies feel like selling a different product.

I only ever use earphones when I fly, which is two or three times a year.

I have a crappy pair of earphones that I bought in a drugstore probably about ten years ago that work surprisingly well and drown out the various environmental noises on a plane.

So I have a perfectly functioning item that I own. I do not wish to be compelled to upgrade something that I use so infrequently because it's stylish or Apple wants me to spend more money.

USB-C is getting standardized everywhere now

3.5 mm has been a standard from the motherfisting 1950s

I have aux earphones and it needs to work with some extension on new phones.
Earphone while charging
Enabling OTG for usb eaphone

It requires extra hardware to get the same functionality I'd have by having a traditional jack.

Also the excuses these companies make up for removing it are always silly. No, the phone isn't too thin to have one* -- that's always marketing BS. It's always, always, always to save the pennies it costs to add a headphone jack. Those pennies of course add up during manufacturing.

They can save costs in that way because some people don't care. It makes a simple headphone jack seem like a nothing feature, and the narrative can be pushed that those who want it are simply latching on to the past. Something similar happens with the arguments for and against physical buttons vs. touch screens, especially in cars.

*there is a YouTube video (I believe by Strange Parts) where they add a headphone jack to an iPhone which Apple had explicitly claimed was too thin to have one.

Because its not good to reward bad behaviour

Because I can't charge my phone and use the headphones at the same time. Only 1 USB-C port on my phone.

Because while we have wireless charging now, one of the key lifetime limits on a phone is wear on the USBc connector, lost many of my phones that way.

Because it sucks and the 3.5mm jack is better. Manufacturers should be forced to include it or pay a punitive fee calculated to far outweigh the savings of not including the jack, perhaps $5,000 per individual unit manufactured.

I haven't seen a single phone that has more than one USB-C port, and I would like to listen to stuff while these these phones charge their miniscule batteries.

Decent audio for cheap.
beeing the aux chad on parties for moments when the system requires it.
???

I want to be able to charge my phone while using headphones
My laptop doesn't have USB-C

I use my earphones for both my PC and my phone. Seems kind of dumb I have to disconnect the dongle when I go from phone to PC and vise versa.

I hate dongles with a passion. They're so easy to lose. And for what? So your headphones work like normal? Not worth it.

I would need to replace my headphones, too. Right now I'm able to plug in my studio monitors, my earphones for biking, my wife's earphones, my kid's, my spares, ... I can buy cheap replacements, or repair then easily. Kid kept breaking his so I started repairing them, which turned out to be almost trivial. Mostly wires getting loose in the cups or the plug itself.

Its just simpler, and plugging a round plug is simpler than a rectangle. If all heaphones and audio stuff was already USB C then I probably woudnt disagree. But they are just overcomplicating stuf

I do it out of principle. I disagreed with their decicion to remove it like so many others at the time but unlike the vast majority of those others I decided to vote with my wallet and to this day I refuse to buy a phone without one.

While I do use a USB-C phone, the thing I miss most about the audio jack is a wired audio connection that doesn't remove charging or require a separately purchased dongle.

i don't even use headphones, however I don't like buying new things that have less features then my old things, so I keep buying phones that have both sd slot and a 3.5mm jack...
however i had to give up 2 sims + sd in my latest phone... Combined slots are such a stupid idea (1 sim + sd/2 sims)

Nobody wants to buy and carry around crappy dongles which get lost. Plus the usb c sound of not any better, in some cases it's worse, especially on a cheap dongle. So now I'm expected to buy expensive dongles to be sure they work, on top of the price of the phone, as well as a phone charger because they don't include that either, when the 3.5mm jack gives me 100% quality audio experience?

No thanks. I'll keep buying phones with headphone jacks.

3 times a week I go for dialysis and I can either take Bluetooth headphones or wired. I tried the Bluetooth to see what it was like and its just clunky. It's bulky and akward to use one handed plus once the Bluetooth in ear bud fell on the floor. I can't get up at all during the session so it had to stay there until I was finished

Whereas I now take my cheap(€10) Sony wired in ear headphones and they are far smaller in my pocket, easy to use, the bud didn't fall out of my ear because it's smaller (no circuitry and battery) and when if it fell out it wouldn't fall on the floor because it's attached to a wire. Plus I'm not isn't extra battery power on my phone while listening whereas Bluetooth will drain my phone battery.

Another reason I discovered recently. I work at home on a company laptop. Can't do shit with it so I listen to music via my phone or personal desktop. I tried using Bluetooth gear but realised quickly that if someone called me on teams/Skype or whatever, switching device with Bluetooth is tedious and slow. Wired stuff goes out and in, boom. Oh and none of my computer's have a usb c port despite one being fairly new (2021).

My laptop has exactly one USB-C port. It's on the back and it's the one port that directly connects to the GPU so slightly better performance if I use that with my external monitor. The audio jack on the side is much more convenient to use. Strike 1.

It is honestly pretty rare for me to listen to something on my phone. The rare times I do use my headphones with my phone it's because something took out my internet while I was in a voice chat and I just unplug the headset from my laptop and plug into my phone to take my friends with me on whatever adventure it takes to investigate. Strike 2.

I already have a perfectly good headset with 3.5mm. Getting a whole new headset or even an adapter just feels like extra added cost for no real gain. Strike 3.

Bonus round. I can plug a 3.5mm headset into my Nintendo Switch while it's docked. Can't do that with USB-C. It's an odd thing to mention, but I have made use of that enough times to bring up.

Bonus bonus round. I have tried giving bluetooth a chance, but every time I'm massively let down. Initially things sound fine, then the moment I connect to a voice chat it's like I'm listening through water or something. Maybe it's the bluetooth headsets in my price range or maybe it's just bluetooth not being good in general but I can't work with that. I have a hard time with my hearing. I need people to be as clear as possible and I know for sure I get that with a wired headset.

The jack works and I don't have to buy another dongle/cable for my headset to work. I have to use an iphone for work, so I connect that to Bluetooth and everything else is connected through the audio jack on the headset.

Spoken by someone who only has USB-C laptops and phones. I have a lot more equipment that outputs audio, plus, all the good hardware either has a 3.5mm, 6.5mm or a 2.5mm plug.

My new phone is a flagship and does have a headphone jack (ASUS Zenfone 10), but I will rarely use it. Sometimes it's definitely convenient to be able to plug in some random headphones or speakers, but usually the port just literally collects dust. It actually filled up so bad on my previous phone, that any jack I plugged in didn't stay plugged in. However, that phone is now 6 years old.

I'm not a fan of bluetooth, I find the headphones heavy due to the battery which hurts after long use. 3.5mm is much more convenient to use i find, and also much easier to replace if it breaks.

Due to my current phone not having a headphone jack i can't use my koss portapros, so I picked up a pair of kph40 utility, again from koss which use a USB c cable and they work great.

I can't connect to my car's audio with Bluetooth, and can't afford to replace the car stereo with one that supports Bluetooth - it's just not a priority. When I upgrade my phone, I'll stay with an earphone jack.

Are there any waterproof USB-C headphones?

Are there already any USB-C earphones with an L-shaped connector (90 degrees)?

The Sony phones still have audio jacks

My car is old and I can't afford a new one, it's 3.5mm or a bluetooth speaker in the passenger seat.

Because the extra circuits will increase the bill of materials by a few dollars and there's not enough margin for that

I don't carry a bag and I don't want to put a dongle in my pocket

Currently I can connect my phone to a set of speakers at a small local café, several of my expensive over ear headphones, aux input of my friend's car, and a 70 cent lapel mic. Can I carry a dongle with me everywhere? Probably. Will I remember to do it? Probably not.

One note I noticed about USB-C dongles and headphones is that they need to be powered, whereas traditional headphones do not. So the headphones draw power from the phone, which then hurts battery life.

Because all USB C to 3.5mm Aux adapters are flimsy as mother fuckers that break down after two months use. I would not even care otherwise, I never charge and listen at same time anyway.

If anyone has suggestions for adapter that is not made out of thinnest possible wire and is durable, let me know.

Also, I don't want to buy USB-C headphones, since I would only use those with my phone, I want to use them also on other devices, and for compatibility it is better to have it analog instead of USB-C. If I were to buy headphones for phone only, I would just get wireless.

I often have use cases at work where I have to plug in my headphones to device I am not familiar with, for audio troubleshooting at our customers device. Most of the times USB is not an option, only standard analog audio.

Modern laptops also come with way too few USB ports, 2.0 and C combined, so I rather not waste one for audio since there is no reason for audio to go through USB. On my main PC I don't use my internal soundcard but external audio interface for music production, and I want my headphones connected to that, not USB.

So in conclusion, USB-C headphones would be totally worthless to me, no matter the device. Even for phone, I rather go with adapter, or just wireless ones.

Great answers here that I 100% agree with, can't add much

A lot of the answers are good and make sense. Sometimes folks have an impression that wired is better even on some super old, crappy headphones.

If they love those wired buds, they won't want a phone without the jack.

Source: My fiance's mom thinks her new phone is bad since it doesn't work with her ancient crappy earbuds.

I love USB-C for charging and data and display. But it does not replace 3.5mm. Aside from the things mentioned so far in the comments here, a fundamental problem is that now headphones need DACs in them.

The engineering specification states that an analog headset shall not use a USB-C plug instead of a 3.5 mm plug. In other words, headsets with a USB-C plug should always support digital audio (and optionally the accessory mode)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Audio_Adapter_Accessory_Mode

That increases the cost of headphones and introduces a point of failure and makes things more complicated for the end user. It's just not worth it.

For all who want a workaound you could check Sony sbh 5x or 2x line (dunno if they still Produce the 5x line). Those are basicly bluetooth receiver with a classic 3.5mm plug. Sbh 56 https://amzn.eu/d/9ZVvapi