Built for all day wearing - EKSA's new H1 headset is a cross between gaming headphone and one-sided mono headset designed for calls that go on for longer than expected. Whether work call or chatting to friends in game, it is nice wearing something comfortable to make call conversations less tiring and more enjoyable, which is one of the reasons why call centers use a one earcup headset design. 

 

The EKSA H1 single-sided over earcup design completely surrounds one ear, whilst keeping the other ear freely uncovered so, you can listen to what's going on around you. The earcup inner hole measures 4cm wide and 6cm high and integrates springy foam padding covered with soft PU leather material. The earcup can tilt and swivel, although not fully 90 degrees, which means you cannot lay the earcup flat on a desk. 

You can wear the EKSA H1 headset on your right ear or left ear. The T-shaped pad on the side sits comfortably against the temple area, thanks to the silicone-like rubber material which is really soft and flexible. The T-pad is non-removable and can swivel slightly side to side. The EKSA H1 single-sided headset also integrates headband adjustment for the earcup side so, you can adjust the height of the earcup. The headband adjuster consists of a ratchet style plastic slider reinforced with a metal band.

 

The EKSA H1 headband is made of a thick piece of soft rubber, including the underside. It is not the traditional foam padding but the H1 headset is super comfortable mainly because it only weighs 155 gram, which is ultra lightweight and will not cause hot spot on top of the head. 

 

The EKSA H1 one sided headphones feature a non-detachable boom arm microphone, which can be fully rotated clockwise and counter-clockwise, allowing you to position the boom arm mic on the left or right side of your head. The boom arm mic can be easily flipped upright (90 degrees) and down below the chin to keep the microphone away from the mouth. It would have been neat if the EKSA H1 boom arm could be unplugged like the E910 5.8Ghz wireless headset and Eksa Joy Air Plus gaming headphones.

 

The EKSA H1 boom mic has an led light which works during calls. During a call, the led turns on automatically and turn off when the call is over. It would have been neat if the boom mic led also turned on when muting the audio. That said, when the mic is muted you will hear a voice prompt saying "microphone on" and "microphone off", which is helpful. 

 

Speaking for calls, the H1 headset rubber boom arm measures 10cm long and, it is equipped with an omnidirectional mic with ENC noise suppression. The call quality and background noise suppression is superb, which is surprising considering the budget price of the H1 headset. The voice pickup is natural sounding and clear with no distortion or robotic sounding and the noise filtering will block out 85% of ambient noise.

On-board the the headset, there is a 500mAh battery that takes 90 minutes to charge via the USB-C port, which is input charge only - does not support audio so, you cannot listen to audio via the USB-C port. Also, you cannot use EKSA H1 headset whilst charging either because the bluetooth connection automatically disconnects, which is a safety feature, although some headsets do support audio passthrough whilst charging. Battery life with EKSA H1 headset is around 55 hours (music playtime) and 28 hours if you use it exclusively for calls.

It would have been neat if the EKSA headset had a 3.5mm aux audio port for wired audio but it doesn't so, you can only use the EKSA H1 headset wirelessly. There are three plastic clicky buttons located on the outer front of the earcup and a mute button located on the side of the boom arm. 

 

The middle button is the largest and it is tactile (has two tiny notches) with multi-functionality: power on/off, pause/play, voice assistant and calls (answer/end/reject/redial).  During a call, you can also switch the call audio from the headset to the phone and viceversa, as well as do three-way calling so, you can switch between two calls at the same time.

The volume buttons let you up and down the volume, as well as skip tracks to previous and next. The earcup driver is equipped with a highly sensitive (114dB) 40mm dynamic driver with low impedance (32 ohms). There is bluetooth 5.0 connectivity with 30 meters range and absolute bluetooth volume support. Bluetooth multipoint connectivity is not supported. When listening to audio, the status led blinks every 10 seconds. You will also hear an audio beep when reaching max volume.

The H1 headset is ideal for work conference calling, in-game chatting and mixing DJ headphones for monitoring audio. The H1 comes with a 26-gram PU leather drawstring pouch (medium thickness) with Eksa branding (heat printed) in bold orange letters. A premium charging cable (USB-A to USB-C) is also included. The charging cable is Elsa-branded, weighs 15 grams and, it is made of rubber and has rubberized plugs with orange accents. The only minor drawback about the cable it's the length - it's just 40cm long. Yo can buy the EKSA H1 one sided headset from amazon. Check out the EKSA Fenrir gaming headphones. Check out the review of the Star Engine E5000 Pro gaming headset.