Mivi AI Buds- Review

Words: Vishwanath Venkatesh

The Mivi AI buds claim to fame is that its AI features set it apart from the rest of the pack and to offer the must sublime and seamless experience, almost akin to being the Jarvis to your Tony Stark. While this idea is laudable, it doesn’t quite meet those lofty goals.

Posited as a one stop audio solution for any Android user, they aren’t compatible with IOS, it aims to deliver the holy trinity of any great earbud experience, spectacular audio, great noise cancellation and comfort. It unfortunately doesn’t measure up in these departments.
Let us start with the build quality and ergonomics. The buds at full price retail for INR 19,999/-, but the plastic used feels cheap, the mirror finish on the stems are a fingerprint magnet. The case itself looks like a Funko Pop x Daft Punk collaboration. They are so chunky they stand themselves up, a good paperweight replacement, I guess.

The lid of the case doesn’t open fully and you’ll end up scraping your finger between the lid and earbuds constantly, making the hinge open a little wider wouldn’t have hurt. The buds are comfortable(ish) and there are replacement ear-tips should you need them; I was fine with the ones out of the box. On a side note, the way the extra ear-tips and the charging cable were packed in a small plastic baggy and put into another small box in the larger package, seemed like an afterthought. They are fine to wear for an hour, they start getting uncomfortable thereafter, mostly owing to the design on the stems.
Its not all doom and gloom, the audio quality of the buds were good, the ANC was also good, at 60% volume with ANC on, isolation was good. There is a transparency mode, but it’s not great, but doable in a pinch. The bass, lows and mids were good, but if were to compare it to the Airpods Pro or any of the Sony buds in the INR. 18,000/- to 20,000/- range, it doesn’t stack up.

Now the main USP of these buds, the vaunted AI features. The AI assistant is great, when it understands what you’re asking of it. It worked fine, what I was truly impressed with was the languages it is able to operate in, I tried it in English, Tamil, Hindi and Kannada, and it recognized the prompts right away, which is a way better than Siri if I am being honest. However, you have to manually change languages for the buds to operate in that specific language, I can’t switch from English to Hindi mid conversation with the AI, hopefully this will change in time. Another annoying part was the fact that I couldn’t switch audio modes whilst on a call, this needs to be addressed by Mivi. The AI assistant is also quite intrusive, it kept responding unprompted while I was in conversation with someone else. My only concern is how useful is the AI assistant? I honestly did not feel like using the AI as much as I thought I would, other than the basic prompts about the weather etc, I tried out the AI Chef hat that the buds offer, which worked fine, but again I was found asking myself if I would use this on a day to day basis, heck I have AI all over the place, my phone, my tablet, my computer, do I need my buds chirping away in my ears or just listen to some Progressive Rock uninterrupted? Also, the AI assistant is a paid feature for which you will have to subscribe down the line once the trail period expires.

In conclusion, at full price, as an android user I’d much rather have the Sony WF-1000XM5, for IOS the AirPods Pro is a no brainer. At the discounted price of INR 6,999/-, if you want an alternative that are just earbuds that sound great, have decent ANC, and are comfortable and you’re not really interested in the AI stuff, go with the Sony WF-C700N, which are still a great value proposition.