DOQAUS Care 1 Headphones Review

Last Updated: on January 10, 2024 by Jack

The Care 1 model from the Chinese manufacturer DOQAUS is a budget set of Bluetooth over-ear headphones that can also be used as wired.

DOQAUS have a few other very similar models in terms of design and price to check out, such as the Care 2, 3 and Life.

We tried out the Care 1 model, which is DOQAUS’ most popular from the range and is one of the biggest headphone sellers in 2023 on Amazon. Advertised as having 52h wireless playback time with the rechargeable battery, do they really stand up to this claim, and is this what all the fuss is about?

Quick Verdict

Design and Build

We got a hold of a plain black set, but there’s a range of about 10 different colours to choose from.

Note: One thing to watch out for is that there is an older version of the Care 1, which some of the older reviews on Amazon are for. There’s a newer version that now ships out, so some of the older reviews might be reviewing a slightly different design. We are reviewing the current, new design that ships out.

Body

After unboxing the Care 1s, our first impression of the body design was that it looked quite nice and better than we thought in the flesh for a budget set of headphones. The shiny branded plastic sides also add a nice touch to the overall aesthetics.

In terms of size, they’re not too large or chunky with their 40mm drivers and are definitely compact when folded in. They weighed about as much as we expected at 250 grams, which is reasonable and not too heavy.

It’s made from ABS plastic and probably isn’t as strong quality-wise as your bigger brand headphones. They don’t feel cheap as such when handling them and are probably slightly better than what you would expect from a lower-priced set of headphones. That being said, we wouldn’t be confident relying on the build quality if we were to drop them on the ground.

Overall, the body feels reasonably sturdy but probably not strong enough to take a bit of a bash.

Headband and Adjustments

Having an adjustable and folding design, we wanted to see how robust and adjustable it actually was. The plastic isn’t the strongest quality we’ve come across, so we had some anxiety about adjusting the headband too much and potentially snapping it.

You can either extend the headphones length-wise or fold them inwards using the adjustable part of the band, as shown below. Folding them inwards allows you to pop them nicely in the travel bag provided.

We must say that we were pleasantly surprised through our testing of adjusting the headband length and folding it in. It handled it well, even when applying a lot of pressure and being heavy-handed to see if we could get it to break. It stood up to the test fine and showed some good durability when adjusting the headband.

As part of the adjustable design, you can also swivel the cushioned ear cups out 180° using the plastic swivels attached to them from the headband. Again, we put it to the test by forcefully trying to pull the ear cups out from the joints when swivelling them around, but couldn’t.

Overall the headband is stronger than it looks or feels. We also found no issues when adjusting the size and angle of the headphones.

Ear Cushions and Drivers

It sports dual dynamic 40mm drivers, which are covered by a thin layer of spongey cloth.

The drivers themselves are about what you would expect size-wise from an over-ear, foldable set of headphones. If you compare them with other similar-style headphones, you’ll notice that most of them also use 40mm drivers.

The leather earmuffs that cushion the headphones have soft memory foam inside them. The ear cushions look pretty standard overall, but we feel the leather that cushions the ears could be better. The leather feels like it might wear away fairly easily over time.

Although we’ve no long-term use to report wearing the headphones, one of the most common complaints online is that the ear cushions could be better made, and we agree. More on the fit and comfort further down.

Buttons

There are 5 buttons overall – Volume up, volume down, play/pause, EQ mode change and power on/off.

Our first impression of the buttons is that they looked quite small and awkward to use on the go.

This was the case when pressing the buttons for a test; they were quite awkward to press and would be easier to use if they were larger and clearer to see.

Using the track control buttons was ok, but the EQ button, and especially the power on/off button, definitely should be more visible and easier to press. If you’ve got larger fingers or struggle with your dexterity for any reason, the buttons might be tricky to use when needed.

Another thing to note about the button design is that the buttons themselves had a cheap, plastic feel to them. They felt a bit flimsy and not as secure as we would have liked them to be.

Overall the button design was a bit of a letdown for us and could be improved by increasing the size and visibility of the buttons. But we get it; it’s a budget set of headphones with lots going on. One thing we will add is that the functionality of the buttons themselves was excellent for us as reviewed further down.

Wires and Cables

Designed primarily as a wireless set of headphones with a rechargeable battery, you still have the option to switch to a wired power setup thanks to the doubled-ended 3.5mm AUX cable provided.

The wired audio cable itself is around 1.03m long (approx) and feels slightly thicker and less flexible than your average headphone cable design. It does feel likely to tangle, as straight out of the box, after taking the little bit of velcro it has wrapped around it off, it already looked difficult to straighten out.

The plastic housing of the cable at the jack felt quite secure. We gave the plastic and cabling at the headphone jack a bit of a pull and twist at both ends, but there were no issues or loose connections.

The USB charging cable is pretty standard but is slightly shorter at around 0.8m long (approx). We plugged the 3.5mm AUX and USB charging cable into the headphones to see if there were any issues, but both went in nicely and felt secure.

Overall the ability to switch to a cabled mode whenever you need to preserve the battery is excellent, but the jack cable quality could have been better.

Comfort and Fit

For a budget set of headphones, the comfort and fit of the Doqaus Care 1s are excellent.

We used quite an awkward-shaped head with larger ears to test it, but the headphones sat on them securely. The ear cups are quite large in diameter and cushion the ears nicely, but they might be slightly too big for someone with smaller ears.

The headband was surprisingly comfortable, considering it looks a bit cheap. The foam padding isn’t the thickest, but it did feel nice and soft pressed against the head. It didn’t feel like there was any pressure pressing against you from either the drivers, ear cups or the headband. 

After wearing the headphones for a few hours, we expected them to start to hurt a bit, but surprisingly they never, and felt we could continue wearing them for the rest of the day comfortably.

Although the fit felt great for casual listening in the house, we tested it further to see if they still felt comfortable and tight enough whilst running with them. The headphones never fell or slid off once when moving around quite a lot with them on. The comfort was also still excellent when doing a short running session.

Overall we were impressed with the comfort and fit. The big pads and the easily adjustable headband created an enjoyable wearing experience. They were secure enough on the head for us to recommend them for exercising on the go.

Battery Life

The rechargeable battery life is advertised as 52 hours by DOQAUS, which is an impressive claim for a Bluetooth set of headphones. With most wireless headphones, you would probably be looking at them lasting half as long.

Straight out of the box, without charging, they ran for a good few days worth of moderate use in wireless mode.

Fully charging the Care 1s battery took around 2-3 hours, which yielded close to the 52 hours worth of playback time claimed by DOQAUS. We weren’t using them non-stop, but it probably equated to about 1 week’s worth of music playback before they needed to be charged again.

To preserve the battery in wireless mode, an auto-off feature kicks in if there’s no activity after about an hour or so. It’s an ok feature, but to be honest, most people probably remember to switch the headphones off themselves when not in use.

You also get an audio reminder through the headphones when the battery is under 30% (approx) charge, letting you know that you should recharge the headphones again. It can be a bit annoying having your listening experience interrupted through the headphones remembering you to recharge the device.

One disappointing thing is that the battery is not replaceable, meaning that once it dies, the headphones are effectively dead and need to be disposed of. This is not unique to this model, but a bit disappointing from a green perspective. DOQUAS are good at replacing units if you get in touch with them.

Overall the biggest selling point is the wireless playback time you get with the rechargeable battery. It surprised us, as we thought it was just all talk with the whole 52 hours advertised, but it does live up to that claim.

Bluetooth Connection

We found no issues with the Bluetooth connection to a few different devices we tested. They connected the first time and were all stable connections.

We connected them to an iPhone, a Macbook Pro, and a Sony Walkman MP3 player.

They were quite impressive in our Bluetooth range test outdoors, as they managed to hold a stable connection until about 35 metres away before we started to lose connection to our mobile device. The advertised Bluetooth range by DOQAUS is 10 metres.

Moving around a lot, exercising didn’t seem to cause the connection to drop either, which can be common with some Bluetooth connections.

Overall we found no issues with the Bluetooth connection from our own experience.

Sound Quality

The sound quality was ok overall and probably what we would expect from a decent set of budget headphones. The sound was reasonably well-balanced, clear and didn’t have that tinny sound associated with cheap headphones. We found the volume level excellent and went as high as we needed it to go.

That being said, nothing stood out as special from our listening experience regarding ranges, which is probably where it falls a little short sound-wise.

There are 3 different EQ modes to toggle through: Heavy Bass, Vocal and Equilibrium Mode. We found that the EQ mode changes didn’t really yield much of a change in sound, except maybe a slight boost in bass. The bass had a slight kick to it, but nothing major or heavy.

Note: Some of the Amazon reviews state that the newer version of DOQAUS Care1 does not sound the same as the older version, so just be aware when looking through some of the sound reviews.

The Care 1s don’t really have active noise cancellation as far as we can tell, however, they do an ok job at blocking out external sounds thanks to the noise isolation from the large cups they sport. We did notice there was a little sound bleed from the Care 1s. The sound leakage wasn’t anything major; it was just noticeable in quieter environments.

Overall the sound quality is ideal for the average headphone user. If you’re after a professional sound for music, this isn’t the sound quality you’re after. It’s not crisp enough for audiophiles or serious music consumers, but it’s still a respectable sound for a budget pair of headphones we can recommend.

Features

Although we covered some of the features further up as part of the review for other things, we’ll quickly go over some notable features and other things worth mentioning.

Note: None of the built-in features listed below work on the DOQAUS Care 1 when plugged into the headphone jack using wired mode. All these features only work when in Bluetooth wireless mode.

EQ Modes

3 different listening modes are available thanks to the EQ mode toggle button on the side. A female voice tells you when you switch through the 3 different modes saying “Heavy Bass Mode,” “Vocal Mode,” and “Equilibrium Mode”.

Audio Control Buttons

Another handy part of the built-in button design allows you to control your audio with 3 buttons: volume up, volume down and play/pause. The buttons aren’t the easiest to press, but they functioned as required for us.

Automatic Power Off and Low Battery Warning

After a short period of inactivity (we reckon about 1 hour approximately), the headphones will automatically power off themselves to preserve the battery. As we mentioned further up, it’s a feature not really required, as most people just turn the headphones off themselves.

You also get a low battery warning through the headphones when it’s running under 30% (approx) charge. It’s an ok feature, but it does interrupt your audio to remind you to recharge the headphones, which can get a bit annoying.

Microphone

There’s a built-in microphone which isn’t great, but that’s fairly common with budget headphones. We found that it didn’t produce a clear enough sound for having conversations outside. We think that part of the problem is the design of the microphone being so far away from your mouth.

As mentioned further up, you can’t use the microphone in wired mode, only wireless Bluetooth mode.

Water Resistance?

The reason we put a question mark is that although they’re not advertised as water-resistant by DOQAUS, lots of users reported wearing them when running in the rain (heavy rain in some instances) and still having them function perfectly fine afterwards.

Just a disclaimer: We make no claims they’re water-resistant, and neither does DOQAUS, so we wouldn’t purposely get them wet.

Customer Support

We thought we would write a bit about DOQAUS’ excellent customer support.

Although we haven’t had a reason to contact DOQAUS over the Care 1s, customer support stands out as excellent when reading most real customer reviews.

From what we’ve read, DOQAUS seem to be pretty quick at responding to customer messages looking for a solution to a problem with their unit or even replacing it.

They seem to take responsibility for their products and are happy to communicate directly with you on any issues. Again, this isn’t based on experience but just by reading through the hundreds of reviews they have.

You can contact DOQAUS directly over at: https://www.doqaus.com/contact.html

The Care 1s come with an extended warranty if you register the product online.

What’s Included In The Box?

It was packaged well and didn’t feel like it was all just thrown into a box like other budget headphones.

• 1 x DOQAUS Care1 Bluetooth Headphones Over Ear
• 1 x Storage Pouch 
• 1 x AUX Cable (1.03m approx)
• 1 x Charging Cable (0.8m approx)
• 1 x User Manual

Specifications

• Type: Wired/Wireless, Over-Ear
• Speaker: Dual 40mm 
• Impedance: 32Ω±15% 
• Sensitivity: 118dB±3DB
• Rating Power: 20mW 
• Bluetooth Range: Advertised as 10m, but we got around about 35m
• Frequency Response: 20HZ-20 KHZ
• Dual 40mm Driver
• Dimensions: 19.1 x 17.2 x 9.1 cm (approx)
• Weight: 250g (approx)
• Built-in microphone

Who Should Buy Them?

The design is relatively similar to many over-ear wireless models you’ll find on the marketplace today in the budget price range. The DOQAUS Care 1 model must have got something right since they have so many positive reviews online and are one of the best sellers in the space.

Recommended For: They’re perfect for people on a budget looking for an exercise style of headphones to pair with their mobile phone. The exceptional wireless battery life and impressive comfort make them ideal for gym goers, runners, walkers and anyone else on the go.

Not Recommended For: Music lovers or gamers looking to turn them into a gaming headset with the microphone. If it’s music or gaming you’re serious about, go for something different, as the sound and microphone quality probably isn’t right for you.

Overall: We liked them. The excellent rechargeable battery life in Bluetooth mode is the standout feature. They’re definitely worth looking at if you’re shopping in the budget headphone space, especially if you find them on sale.