Skullcandy Indy ANC True Wireless Earbuds Review: Cool Features, Common Problems

Who Are The Skullcandy Indy ANC True Wireless Earbuds For?

• The Skullcandy Indy ANC True Wireless Earbuds have strong battery life and a lightning fast recharge time
• The Indy ANC earbuds have a pretty impressive microphone, making them great for phone or video calls
• Included Tile support is ideal for anyone who frequently misplaces items

There is almost a never-ending list of earbud options available right now, and even more are on the way. Skullcandy is here to add another, the Indy ANC True Wireless earbuds. Thanks to some seriously impressive charging speeds and included bonus features, the Indy ANC has something more to offer over the competition. Is this enough to stand out as the clear wireless earbud champion? Let's find out.

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Weird Fit, But OK

The first thing I noticed about the Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds is that they are pretty bulky, even compared to other true wireless earbuds. It feels like the bud sticks out of the side of my head much more than, say, the 1More ComfoBuds. The Indy ANC earbuds also opt for the "bud on a stick" form like the ComfoBuds over the "bud in your ears" approach like the EarFun Free Pros.

The Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds did cause some discomfort the first few times I wore them. I don't know what happened, but around the third or fourth time I used them, they became much more comfortable. I'm not sure if I put them in differently, my ears had adjusted to them, or something else.

The Indy ANC earbuds come with a winged tip to help the earbud nestle into the ear without popping out. There are a few different sizes of ear tips and wings included to help get a better fit. Earbuds generally don't fit in my ears that well, and while I did have some issues with the Indy ANC buds, they stay put without too much hassle.

ANC Does Nothing

Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds, like many other earbud offerings out there, claim to include active noise cancelling technology. Here's the thing with active noise cancellation, or ANC, in earbuds: it never works. That's true across all earbud brands and models I have used to date, and remains true with the Indy ANC buds.

The Indy ANC earbuds have three playback modes when it comes to noise cancellation. There is the ANC mode, an Ambient mode, where ambient sound is passed through the earbuds along with music to make listening to surroundings easier, and standard playback. I really didn't notice anything different when jumping between the three modes, and didn't notice any change in the amount of sound I heard when turning on noise cancellation.

The noise cancellation on the Indy ANC was so bad with my laptop that I actually had to turn the earbuds off and reset the Bluetooth pairing. While this issue never happened with my phone, the ANC caused some sort of horrible crackling sound when listening to music through my laptop. Once reset, the issue thankfully didn't come back.

Quality Audio

If there's one area where the Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds stand out in terms of performance, it's audio quality. The Skullcandy app includes the ability to custom tune your hardware to better match your hearing, in what Skullcandy calls Personal Sound. To set this up, simply pair some Skullcandy hardware to the app and take the Personal Sound test. This test provides a series of tones and asks if the user can hear the tones or not. Once done, the app says it has reconfigured playback to better fit the user's hearing.

This Personal Sound setting actually does make a noticeable difference to the listening experience. Because Personal Sound can be toggled on and off in the app, it's easy to notice that with Personal Sound on, music sounds more full and rich. Certain sounds, like cymbal crashes, come through much more pronounced with Personal Sound activated. In short, Personal Sound makes it feel like I hear every part of a song whereas traditional playback sounds like certain parts get buried.

The Indy ANC earbuds don't have a tinny sound that many earbuds have, even on the high end with squealing violins or trumpets. Granted, the audio, and especially the bass, is not as deep or full a sound as a pair of headphones, but that's to be expected.

Above Average Microphone

It's fairly common for earbud microphones to feature not quite top-of-the-line microphones. When using earbuds for phone calls, they regularly sound like the wearer is either stuck in a huge, empty room filled with echoes, or are muffled and don't sound clear.

However, the Skullcandy Indy ANC does away with those common sounds and instead makes wearers sound almost perfectly normal. The only issue the person I talked to on the phone experienced was that I would sometimes sound louder than normal for short periods of time. This is likely because I was turning my head and sound was more directly being fed into a microphone. Outside of the occasional volume spike, I was told I sounded nice and clear.

Standard Tap Controls

The Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds feature tap controls, a common feature among true wireless earbuds. These controls are very similar to other offerings, with users given the ability to play and pause music, answer and hang up phone calls, skip songs, change volume and access a phone's smart assistant. As an addition, the Indy ANC features tap controls to turn on and off the ANC features. The earbuds pair individually with devices, allowing for users to tap the left ear to lower and right ear to raise the volume.

Also like other earbud options, the tapping controls with the Indy ANC are hit and miss. When the earbuds register the tap, it feels awesome. However, the earbuds frequently don't register the taps and either nothing or something unexpected happens. Like ANC in earbuds, poor tap registration is a fairly common issue among wireless earbuds in general, so it isn't too surprising and isn't a deal breaker.

Decent Battery, Shocking Recharge Speeds

True wireless earbuds aren't known for their battery life, and even Apple's AirPods only get around five to six hours on a single charge. While the Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds aren't completely reinventing the battery life game, they do offer a serviceable amount of power from a single charge. The Indy ANCs have five hours of battery life with noise cancellation on, and nine hours with it turned off. Seeing as how the ANC doesn't really do anything, it makes sense to keep it off for the extra battery power.

Where the Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds really separate from the competition is with recharge speed. I went from only one light on the front to a full four lights in what felt like less than an hour. Even more impressive was the fact that this was with wireless charging. It charges even faster if I plug the case in.

The earbuds themselves also charge fairly quickly. I had the earbuds down to around a seven percent charge at one point, but after around 10 minutes in the case they had jumped up to over 70 percent charged. A full recharge takes less than 20 minutes.

With a fully charged case, the Indy ANC boasts 23 hours of playback with ANC turned off. Of course, this involves having to put the earbuds back in their case to recharge, but that's still pretty decent total battery life.

Extra Add-Ons

As a nice little add-on, the Indy ANC earbuds also come with free Tile support. This allows Indy ANC owners to keep track of their earbuds, and can locate them if they ever get lost. To use the Tile support, owners do need to download the Tile app along with the Skullcandy app, but setting the earbuds up with Tile is simple and straightforward.

Additionally, the Personal Sound settings allow for multiple profiles if more than one person is using the Indy ANC earbuds. If someone happens to have two Skullcandy products, different profiles can be saved for each device.

Final Thoughts

There's a lot to like about the Skullcandy Indy ANC true wireless earbuds. Great audio quality coupled with strong battery life and recharge speeds are big pluses. However, the overall bulky feel of the earbuds coupled with ANC features that don't have any noticeable effect certainly don't help.

Most of the issues I had with the Indy ANC, like the active noise cancellation features and taps not being registered, are issues I've experienced across multiple true wireless earbuds. While the Indy ANC still falls into these common problem areas, they are a pretty solid option as far as true wireless earbuds go.