House of Marley Little Bird review: A sustainable staple?

True wireless earbuds are an incredibly popular option in consumer audio these days given their convenience. With so many on the market ranging from low to high prices, each pair of earbuds on the market has to make itself stand out as worthy of consideration. Companies may decide to do that based on the software features the earbuds have, or possibly go toward the design and manufacturing side to focus on.

House of Marley tries to set apart its Little Bird earbuds from the rest of the earbuds on the market by emphasizing sustainability, and how that core aspect of reggae legend Bob Marley’s own philosophy lives on in the company created in partnership with Bob Marley’s family. I tried out these earbuds to see how well they perform, and I looked into the sustainability aspects of these earbuds and the company as well.

House of Marley Little Bird earbuds

The House of Marley Little Bird earbuds are an affordable true wireless choice with sustainability in mind. They look nice and sound great, but don’t fit smaller ears that well.

Pros

• Great sound profile
• Nice design
• Sustainable materials

Cons

• Touch gestures misfire sometimes
• Don’t fit smaller ears very well
• Wish there were more sustainability information

Price, availability, and specs

The Little Bird earbuds are both affordable and colorful

The House of Marley Little Bird earbuds are a pair of true wireless earbuds. The earbuds are housed in a small lightweight case, and come in black and cream colorways. The earbuds come with small, medium, and large silicone ear tips, with each size ear tip being a different color. The earbuds also have on-board controls so that you can control your music and calls without having to grab your phone. They have a battery life of 6 hours with an additional 24 hours in the case, and charge via USB-C.

The House of Marley Little Bird earbuds are available at major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, as well as directly from House of Marley, for $40.

What I liked about the House of Marley Little Bird earbuds

Great sound and sustainable materials

The most important thing about earbuds is how they sound, of course, and the Little Bird earbuds do sound really good. The earbuds do emphasize bass quite a bit, but not in a way that exceeds any other consumer earbuds I’ve tried out. Basically, all genres of music sound perfectly fine through these earbuds, so I have no complaints about the sound profile.

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Another nice aspect of these earbuds is the materials that they’re made out of. House of Marley claims that the materials are sustainable and they use bamboo and recycled plastic. I will note that sustainability is a lot bigger than just the materials earbuds are made of, but more on that later.

I also enjoy that the earbuds are IPX4 water-resistant which means that they can handle splashes of water. So, for example, if you’re running with these outside and it happens to start raining, it’s not a big deal. Just don’t immerse these in water because they can’t protect against that, they’re not fully waterproof.

What I didn’t like House of Marley Little Bird earbuds

Sustainability is more than just planting trees

I didn’t find the ear tips to be particularly comfortable. I think the small ear tips aren’t quite small enough to fit my ears, or maybe it’s the tapering of the earbuds themselves, but they don’t quite fit all the way in my ear. Not long after starting to wear them I feel like they’re slipping out of my ear, and they never really fully go in. I still get a good enough seal at first, but it’s just not very comfortable to wear long term. I also find that if I smile or laugh when I have the earbuds, and they start to dislodge.

While I like that the Little Bird earbuds have touch gestures, I didn’t find them to be very intuitive and I often had misfires. For example, volume up isn’t the same on each earbud, you press once on the right earbud for volume up, and once on the left earbud for volume down. So what if you only have one hand you’re able to use? Thankfully, pausing and playing is two taps, just like it is on most other earbuds.

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Now about that sustainability claim. Though I like that House of Marley uses sustainable materials, I do have some questions about the actual sustainability of them. When companies generally market themselves as sustainable, there needs to be transparency around what that exactly means and what they’re doing to be sustainable. There is a section on the website that explains the materials that they use, but they don’t totally get into the actual environmental impact that these materials have or that their manufacturing has at large. While I do like that they emphasize that many of the materials are recycled and recyclable, I want to know what they’re actually doing to ensure that they do get recycled.

House of Marley also notes their partnership with One Tree Planted, which plants trees in order to help reforestation efforts. House of Marley doesn’t specify what percentage of each purchase goes to One Tree Planted, but they claim that since 2017, the partnership has helped plant over 300,000 trees. While initiatives like One Tree Planted are great in theory, it’s not a great sign when companies stop at that and don’t go any further when it comes to sustainability. As far as I could find, the only aspects of sustainability House of Marley provides information for are about their materials and this partnership.

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It’s important to acknowledge that wireless earbuds are inherently unsustainable in the way that they are not built to last. Earbuds batteries die pretty quickly, especially with lots of charging cycles, so they’re inherently very disposable. These earbuds aren’t repairable by the average person, so when they’re dead, they’re dead. And if people are buying these earbuds and not recycling them, then these earbuds are just going to end up in landfill, and not being as sustainable as they were intended to be. It’s admirable for a company to emphasize sustainable practices when compared to other ones, but consumers should also understand that buying earbuds never has a net positive impact on the environment.

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Should you buy the House of Marley Little Bird earbuds?

The House of Marley Little Bird earbuds are a very good choice for anyone looking for an affordable pair of true wireless earbuds, especially ones made from recycled and sustainable materials. The sustainability aspect of these earbuds doesn’t offset the impact that buying earbuds has on the environment, but it’s certainly a better impact than buying earbuds from a company that does nothing at all in comparison. I wouldn’t recommend these to anyone who has smaller ear canals like myself, because they didn’t quite fit in my ears properly. The design might also not be for everyone, since the Bob Marley-adjacent design choices, while iconic and colorful, won’t necessarily be everyone’s favorite.

House of Marley Little Bird earbuds

5 top songs I listened to on the House of Marley Little Bird earbuds

1. 360 by Charli XCX

2. Hacker by Death Grips

3. UGH! by The 1975

4. Alberto Balsalm by Aphex Twin

5. 212 by Azealia Banks