PlayStation Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds - Overpriced Hot Garbage

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:10:41 -0400

A few months ago, I was looking for a new set of wireless earbuds, since I had lost one of the buds from my previous set. One day, as I was browsing my Reddit feed, I noticed Walmart was selling Sony’s wireless earbuds – called the Pulse Explore – for half of it’s original asking price of $200. I had never heard about these earbuds before. So I checked a few reviews ahead of time; the general consensus was that, aside from the expensive price tag, the earbuds served their purpose, they’re comfortable to wear, and the audio is of decent quality. One user reported from a one-year follow up that there were some gaps in the audio, but a firmware update fixed this.

So, I caved and thought the $100 sale price was going to be worth it. I wanted to compare them with the $30 set that I got from Target.

Package Contents

Inside of the package is as follows:

the earbuds themselves, obviously
a carrying case for said earbuds, which simultaneously acts as the charging station
USB-C cable
three different sets of earbud tips, aside from the ones that are already on the buds
wireless USB dongle (for connecting to the headphones without Bluetooth)
a picture guide that walks you through the process on how to pair the earbuds and use them
safety guide

It uses a similar color scheme as the PS5 and DualSense; the sliding cover for the case is white, while the case itself is black. The earbuds are white on the outside, sporting a barely visible, gray-colored PlayStation logo at the top, and black on the inside. Each bud comes equipped with a physical volume rocker and a pairing button. On the bottom of the case, below the earbuds, is a thin LED strip to indicate activity. When the case is charging via the provided USB-C port, the strip glows orange. When it’s in pairing mode, it will rapidly flash blue. You get the idea.

If the default size of the earbud tips doesn’t suit you, you are able to easily take them out and use one of the provided sets in the box. As you might guess, there’s a small, medium, and large-sized tips.

The Pairing Process

While obviously it was intended to be used in conjunction with PlayStation devices, it also works with PCs via the USB dongle, as well as phones and tablets via Bluetooth. On Fedora, the pairing process was simple: I just connected the USB dongle to one of the available USB ports on my mini PC, put the buds in, and pressed the pairing button on both the dongle and the buds themselves. From there, I heard a chime sound from the earbud to indicate connection was successful, then all I had to do was change the audio output device to the earbuds.

On my Android phone, the pairing process is a little different. I had to hold the pairing button on the case for eight seconds, then the case started flashing blue. From there, I went into Bluetooth settings on my phone, and paired the buds.

The Experience

As far as comfort is concerned, there are no complaints here. I could have these things on for several hours and not feel any sort of discomfort. I suppose I have the right-size tips to thank for that.

I will also give these buds a pat on the back for the minimal latency. I’ve had some intense gaming sessions on my PC with them on, and for a wireless earbud, it’s difficult to achieve sound heard right at the time the action occurs in-game. In other words, there’s no delay.

For sound quality, I feel like even at it’s discount price of $100, it could do a little better. My $30 earbuds delivered better bass than these do. That’s not to say it’s bad, though. It’s fairly decent for what it’s worth. But not good enough.

One nice thing I will say about these buds is the fact that you can connect the buds to multiple devices at once. For example, you could have the buds connected to the USB dongle on your PC, while simultaneously paired with your phone. So, you could listen to tunes from your phone, and listen to in-game audio from games you’re playing on PC.

I should note these buds include a built-in microphone. Nothing fancy about them; they get the job done. I’ve been in a couple of phone calls and Zoom meetings with these on and I haven’t had anyone mention to me that I was hard to hear or anything like that. Obviously, though, I wouldn’t use them as a replacement when I’m doing video recordings. I would still use a dedicated microphone for better quality.

The Complaints

It’s not possible to do a firmware update on Linux. The Pulse Explore earbuds make use of Sony’s PlayStation Link PC driver, which is only available on Windows. This is not like the PlayStation Accessories app, which can be downloaded as an executable binary file and run via Wine to update devices like the DualSense. The PS Link driver is downloaded automatically through Windows when the USB dongle is connected, and can’t be downloaded as a file. I don’t have any Windows devices lying around, and I’m not going to take a spare PC and install Windows on it just to do a firmware update, nor am I going to whip up a Windows VM for the sake of this. Sony added official support for the DualSense into the kernel; why not do the same here with their earbuds?

After a few weeks, the left earbud just stopped working entirely. It’s no longer picking up a charge. Now, I had the package delivered to my house; the way the driver left the package at the door, or the way the package was stored in the vehicle, may have had something to do with that. Other than that, these buds were bought new. I never dropped the case or the buds themselves. I can’t really think of any other reason why the left earbud stopped working.

I’m also frustrated at the sporadic connectivity. Not just hearing gaps in the audio sometimes while listening to music on my morning jogs, but also, say, for example, while I’m driving. The lid for the case is closed. Sometimes, music will randomly stop playing through my car audio, and start playing through the earbuds instead. I’m thinking the connection between the case charger and the earbuds themselves is not completely secure, hence why my phone thinks the earbuds are connected, even though they’re stored inside the case. I’ve had to pull over, go to my phone’s Bluetooth settings, and disconnect the earbuds. But after a few minutes, it’ll re-connect. So, whenever I take my earbuds with me, I usually have to have my phone “forget” the connection, then re-do the pairing process whenever I want to use them. It’s just a tad bit on the annoying side.

I know these are advertised as “gaming” earbuds, but it’s kind of silly to not include buttons on the buds for skipping tracks or pausing them, or for answering a phone call. Literally all you can do is adjust the volume, and sometimes that in of itself doesn’t work! I’m listening to Fleetwood Mac on my phone right now, pressing the volume up and down keys, and the volume isn’t changing. Luckily there’s an Android setting that allows you to skip tracks when the screen is off by holding up or down on the volume buttons on the phone itself, but that’s still a bit of an inconvenience, having to reach into my pocket as opposed to just tapping on my earbud.

Battery life isn’t that great either. I haven’t sat down to properly record how long they last on a full charge, but if I were to take a guess, it’d be around four or five hours. Remember when I talked about the earbuds still playing audio inside of the case sometimes? Yeah – that causes the battery to drain in the buds. Instead of the case doing its job to charge, the battery is slowly draining, all on its own. I wake up one morning, get ready for my jog, then find out I can’t frigging play some much-needed punk rock to get my adrenaline going because the earbuds are fully discharged!

Definitely Not Worth It

My $30 buds did a far better job than this piece of junk did. I never had connectivity issues with it, the bass quality was deeper, I could skip tracks, I didn’t need to worry about firmware updates, I never had any issues with the audio gapping out, the battery never drained by itself. The only things the Pulse Explore buds have going for it is the low-latency, and the ability to simultaneously stream audio on multiple devices. I guess I have bragging rights over the PlayStation brand, but is anyone really going to notice them up close? Moreover, is it really worth the $100 asking price – which normally goes for $200 – just to have some barely-visible PlayStation logos over a litany of issues? It’s bad enough that Sony decided that they aren’t shipping physical media beginning in 2028.

If you’re looking for a pair of wireless earbuds, look somewhere else.

TL;DR The good:

comfortable to wear, with adjustable ear tip sizes
low latency
can simultaneously stream audio from multiple devices

The not-so-good: