Headphone apps keep making me create an account, and I’m done.

I test the headphones for SoundGuys, and after every lab day I log, I always grumble and curse at just how many headphone apps tried (and failed) to get me to cough up an email address and password to make an account. Sure, few other people on Earth see this as often as I do, and sure: most people aren’t going to notice or care about one more login to add to the ol’ password manager. But I’m extremely over apps locking features that have no business being gated behind yet another password to get compromised. And I’m willing to bet that more than one of you out there has gotten frustrated with having to make yet another God damned account just to use a single feature of your headphones.

Many account-gated functions could be done without one

Before we get too deep into this one, it’s worth pointing out that making an app to control headphones is a colossal pain to do — not to mention expensive to maintain over the years. Headphone manufacturers can’t count on sales to maintain stable income enough to pay for constant development, so they’re at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to competing with, say, AirPods. I’m not taking aim at manufacturers for being in a crap situation with limited ways through: I’m taking aim at the overuse of locking features behind an account. However: with extremely few exceptions, there shouldn’t be any headphones that require you to make an account just to use them out of the box.

It’s frustrating every time I pick up a new set of headphones, reach the point where I need the app to continue — only to find out that it’s a chore to use and I can’t get any farther than the start screen without making yet another login. Worse, sometimes some of the headline features of a product can be completely offloaded to a website or third party — so why did I install it again? Apps having issues is not a new thing, for example: when they break key functions of a product, or push firmware that makes your headphones… lesser. But adding an extra layer of junk for you to access basic functions of something you own is annoying at best.

Most of the account-locked features I see — like hearing tests, saving settings depending on your current coordinates, or sharing EQ presets — could be done without one. There’s no reason at all to require a user to make an account for a feature that can be performed solely via an app with user input alone. For example, enabling transparency mode shouldn’t require your email address. Neither should accessing your headphones’ EQ settings require you to share your identity, precise location information, or menstrual cycle. Needing an account for geofencing does make a sort of sense, until you remember that your location could simply toggle app behavior and not be sent out to advertisers. Once you start really thinking about the information and permissions that are being asked of you, the less sense some of these features make.

While there’s definitely an over-use of account-based features with headphones, there are some legitimate uses for having them. For example, any features that allow you to store and share histories or settings between devices you own, or other features are done in partnership with third parties that need permission to serve requests from an app. But there’s no shortage of headphone companies that require you to make an account to use your headphones’ app at all. For most products this is a minor inconvenience at worst, but sometimes headphones require an update to perform their best, and you can’t do that without going into the app. If you’re forced to make an account just to access this, the ability to manage what you put out there is taken away from you — even if only temporarily.

Making accounts is a privacy risk

I know that it’s harder for headphone companies to compete nowadays with unbelievable cost increases and other junk, but if I pay for something: the transaction is over from my standpoint. If a service requires capital to operate, I’d much rather go without or have a price I could pay for in lieu of spreading personally identifiable information (PII) around. Being forced to come up with another login to manage, and cycle during the seemingly semi-annual major hack cycle is a level of effort I don’t want to commit to a single app I use.

“But Chris,” you might be thinking, “what’s the big deal about making an account? It’s just an email and password, bro, it’s free!” Well, no, it isn’t. Accounts that don’t require money to access are often “paid” in your user data. Things like your location, your phone number, your beliefs, your daily routine, parts of your conversations, and other bits of information are often sent to whichever company’s servers to store and do… whatever it is they want with it. These apps collect a bunch of information you probably aren’t aware of, and creating an account allows some of these companies to tie a lot of it to you in their logs — defeating any protection anonymization may have provided you.

Making an account for something online simply shouldn’t be done as lightly as most do. In the world of headphones, that’s much more alarming than you might think at first. Where many apps obey Android and Apple’s privacy controls, forcing users to make an account is sometimes a strategy used to bypass these controls on the phone by obtaining consent to store that information in another way. Even if you buy the claims that your data will be “anonymized,” there are so many ways for that to be unwound it’s hard to count. Though headphone companies may view data sales as a new monetization path to survive in a tougher market, it doesn’t make it any less of a pain in the ass — or something headphone owners should put up with. And while top brands may take cybersecurity seriously, what about some no-name brand off Amazon? Yeah, I don’t think so.

Go account-less

I think the cruelest irony here is that this access is getting demanded of me — and headphone owners like me — in return for… almost nothing. A lot of the features that these accounts need to be created for just suck. And many of the most egregious account-forcing apps simply don’t offer the level of useful or good features I’d want an account for. Though a Canadian man railing against enshittification seems to be a daily occurrence in tech media, I don’t want headphone companies to get off scot-free for their contributions to this phenomenon.

Why put up with it? If your latest headphones won’t let you use the app without making a login: consider returning those headphones. Though apps are a great way to fine-tune your experience, do you find yourself tinkering with the sound often? What about other advanced features? Aside from the occasional firmware update, how much do you really interact with your headphones’ app every day? For most people, that answer is “very little,” if any time at all. Perhaps that’s why I don’t see a lot of people whining about their switch to wired headphones, or simply not installing apps to begin with: There’s far less guff that way.

If you don’t want to make an account for your headphone’s app, I suggest you pay close attention to which models need one and which ones don’t. I’ll make it a point to call this out in future reviews, and in return, all I ask is that you let us know how you get on in the comments. You’ll also want to figure out if you can live without the app outside of firmware upgrades as well. You might find that there’s really not a ton of things you’ll miss, or couldn’t be replaced by a third party app.