Hi, Nothing fans 👋🏻

I’ve got my Nothing Ear (2) recently, and love them so far.

That being said, I want to use them while gaming on my laptop since my headphones broke, hence one of the reasons why I got earbuds. I know it’s not a good idea to play with earbuds, but, well, no choice, hehe. Don’t want to get new headphones, even cheap ones for now.

So questions, yeah:

Maybe I’m paranoid, but it seems like recently, my Ear (2) started having “some small noise” when hearing to audio. Like “crackling” or something like that. Really not sure, but seems like audio isn’t clear. Also, it seems that the issue is on my laptop only. I’ve turned off hands-free mode, so I could game comfortably, though I cannot use the mic now. Maybe it’s related, dunno.
Is using integrated mic in the earbuds degrades audio quality? How much the “degradation effect?”
I’ve encountered a super nasty issue — hand-free mode is enabled in Windows if I use both mic and audio during gameplay. The audio quality worsens to some insane level — like it’s truly abysmal. I could use native mic in the laptop, if it’s possible, but… well, would like to use the earbuds’ ones.
Is it possible to permanently turn on “low latency mode” for Ear (2)? Or at least turn it on while connected to specific devices?
Is “low latency mode” consumes additional battery? How much?
What about equalizer? Well, who knows, maybe it consumes more battery too.
And the same question about “dual connection” feature — I know it consumes more energy, but not sure how much exactly.
The last question is a tad bit silly, but I’m genuinely curious: what’s the flow of connecting Ear (2) to a smartphone? Like I toggle Bluetooth on (smartphone), what should I do next? Just open the Ear (2) case is enough? Do I need to take them completely and hold in my hands? Do I need to put them in my ears? It kinda boggles me, because I still don’t know how to do it properly.
Now’s the true last question — what about switching devices? Just open another device and force connect to Ear (2) and that’s it?

Thanks a lot for your replies, Nothingers!

I think this post can be super useful to many folks, since I didn’t find any answers for these questions — even “hands-free mode” related issue was found after some digging.

P.S: This Reddit post provides a lot of clarity on the issue → https://new.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/ptrive/windows_11_stupid_way_of_using_bluetooth_headsets/.

That being said, I wonder if Ear (2) has “two channels” or whatever, so it’ll be possible to avoid this crappy “hands-free” mode issue — basically, want to use Ear (2) for mic and audio.