Description
The Skullcandy Smokin Buds is a deliberately simple true wireless earbud, and Skullcandy says so directly in its own description: it argues that other manufacturers have chased features at the expense of sound. The battery is disclosed properly, split into 8 hours in the earbuds and 12 in the case. The materials claim is more carefully worded than most sustainability marketing and still needs reading closely. And the specification publishes one number that undercuts an entire use case Skullcandy lists for the product.
Who this pair is for
This is a cheap, light, no frills earbud with a microphone in each bud, touch controls, three ear gel tips and no active noise cancellation. The noise control field on the specification reads none. Skullcandy’s pitch is straightforward listening rather than a feature list, and at this price that is a defensible position. The specific uses field lists music, sport and gaming, and the recommended use is running.
Two of those three deserve a closer look, and the gaming one is dealt with below. On sport, the practical problem is the water rating, which is covered further down. On music and general listening, the design does what it says: a sealing bud with soft gel tips, one mic per earbud so either can be used alone, and enough battery to get through a day.
Connection, and the latency number
Bluetooth is given as 5.0 with a 10 meter range. That is a generation behind current products on a listing first published in July 2023, though the version governs connection stability and power rather than sound quality. No codec is named anywhere. Not SBC, not AAC, not aptX. SBC is therefore the only safe assumption, and nothing here supports a high resolution or lossless description. Skullcandy does not attempt one, which fits the honest positioning.
200 milliseconds is the number to notice
The specification publishes an audio latency figure of 200 milliseconds. Skullcandy deserves credit for publishing it at all, because almost nothing else in this catalog does. It is also a very high figure. At 200 milliseconds, video lip sync will be visibly wrong unless the player compensates, and gaming will feel meaningfully behind your inputs. That directly contradicts the specific uses field, which lists gaming among the intended applications. Treat the Smokin Buds as a music and podcast product. If low latency matters, the EarFun Air Pro 3 publishes 55 milliseconds and the TOZO OpenEgo publishes 45.
Battery: 8 hours in the buds, 12 in the case
The third bullet states it plainly: the earbuds hold 8 hours and the charging case holds 12 hours, for a 20 hour total. Rapid charging gives 2 hours of playback from the first 10 minutes on the charger. That is a clean, honest split of exactly the kind most listings in this category avoid, and the 8 hour earbud figure is the one that governs your day.
The structured specification is less careful, recording both battery life and charging time as 20 hours, which puts the combined playback total into two fields where it does not belong. Trust the bullet. As with every manufacturer, 8 hours is a best case measurement at moderate volume, and the passive isolation from the gel tips is the thing that lets you keep the volume moderate in a noisy place rather than chasing the room with the volume control.
Fit, controls and the water rating that is not published
Three ear gel tips ship in the box, made of a soft rubber that Skullcandy says keeps outside noise outside. That last phrase sits awkwardly next to the noise control field, which reads none. Passive isolation from a sealing tip is real, so the bullet is closer to the truth than the field, but neither is quantified and there is certainly no active cancellation here.
Controls are touch based, and the description mentions EQ modes. No companion app is named anywhere on the listing, so whether those modes are cycled on the bud itself or set in software is unclear. Verify before buying if equalizer control matters to you. There is a microphone in each earbud, which enables single bud use with calls, and Skullcandy specifically highlights being able to leave one bud in the case and still hear your surroundings on that side. That is a sensible awareness suggestion and one of the more practical things on the page.
The water rating is not published. The specification field reads water resistant, with no IP code, and neither the title nor the bullets state one. The recommended use is running. Without a code there is no way to tell whether the protection covers sweat and rain or nothing much at all, and this review will not describe the Smokin Buds as sweatproof, waterproof or rated for anything. Ask Skullcandy for a code before training in them, and note that ratings degrade with age and repeated sweat exposure even when they exist.
The renewable plastics claim, read carefully
Skullcandy states that the Smokin Buds are made with up to 50 percent renewable plastics and that all its packaging is 100 percent recyclable, then defines renewable plastics as made from biobased or biodegradable materials that can be reused or recycled.
Three things are worth noting without dismissing the effort. The phrase up to 50 percent is a ceiling rather than a guarantee, so the actual proportion in any given part is not stated. Biobased and biodegradable are different properties that the sentence treats as interchangeable: a biobased plastic is made from plant derived feedstock and need not break down, while a biodegradable one breaks down under specified conditions and need not be plant derived. And no third party certification or standard is named for either claim. The carrying case material field simply repeats renewable plastic. This is better worded than most sustainability copy on consumer electronics and it is still a manufacturer claim rather than a verified figure.
What else to weigh
Multipoint is not mentioned. Wear detection is not mentioned. Driver size is not published, only the dynamic driver type. The included components field lists only a cable, which contradicts the three ear gel tips described in the bullets. Item weight reads 68 grams and 2.4 ounces, which agree with each other and describe the package rather than the earbuds. Skullcandy states a one year United States warranty, and the country of origin is Vietnam.
Skullcandy records the sales position as ranked 2,523rd in Electronics and 354th in earbud and in ear headphones, on a 4.3 star average across 3,781 ratings. Within the brand’s own range, the Skullcandy Sesh ANC adds cancellation, the Skullcandy Dime goes cheaper still, the Skullcandy Grind sits alongside, and the wired Skullcandy Jib removes Bluetooth from the equation entirely. All appear in our earbud headphones section and the wider true wireless earbud listings.
Who should buy it, and who should not
Buy the Smokin Buds if you want a cheap, simple pair with an honestly stated 8 hour earbud runtime and three tip sizes, and you like that Skullcandy has left the feature list short on purpose. Skip it for gaming or video, because the published 200 millisecond latency is too high for either. Skip it for training until Skullcandy publishes an IP code, and treat the renewable plastics figure as an upper bound rather than a specification.
