Amazon has thrown its hat into the true wireless earbuds ring with the new Echo Buds.
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Just like the Apple AirPods, the Echo Buds offer a mediocre five hours battery life with the accompanying charging case containing enough power for around another 20 hours of use. But unlike Apple’s offering, Amazon’s Buds come equipped with noise-cancelation, driven by Bose’s Active Noise Reduction technology — which is a bit strange considering it doesn’t even come bundled on the audio titan’s own SoundSport Free wireless earbuds.
Obviously, safety is the main concern when using noise-canceling. For example, you need to be able to hear the vehicles around you while crossing a busy street. This is why Amazon has made it extremely easy to control the feature — with a simple double-tap on either bud, passthrough mode can be enabled to allow ambient sound to seep through. Double-tap it again and the noise reduction feature will fire back up, blocking it out once again.
Meet the Amazon Echo Buds.Image used with permission by copyright holder
The Echo Buds come with Amazon Alexa built-in, complete with some Skills that were developed specifically for it — the most notable of which is the option to ask Alexa if (Amazon-owned) Whole Foods has a particular item while browsing the store, as well as finding out which aisle it’s stored in. Plus, Amazon has integrated the option to use the voice assistant that comes part and parcel with your smartphone, including Google Assistant and Siri.
Each bud has also been sealed just enough to secure a coveted IPX4 sweat-resistance rating from the IEC, making the Echo Buds a worthy workout companion — on paper, at least. It even comes with the option to disable the always-listening microphones, should you happen to find yourself in a situation where you’re in need of a bit more privacy than simply trusting Amazon to not listen in on your juicy locker-room conversation.
It’s an interesting proposition for Amazon, adding yet another pair of true wireless earbuds to the mix this late in the game, especially a pair with battery life that falls well below new favorites like Apple’s own Powerbeats Pro from the company’s Beats line, which offer up to nine hours per charge.
That said, the addition of noise-canceling puts the Echo Buds more on footing with Sony’s new WF-1000Xm3, which boast as much as eight hours per charge, but only six hours with noise-canceling engaged. Moreover, the Echo Buds’ $130 price point is nearly $100 less than what Sony is charging for their earbuds.
You can pre-order the Amazon Echo Buds right now, with orders scheduled to start shipping in October.
When it comes to charging AirPods Pro with USB-C, don’t overthink it
There's been a bit of a to-do over USB-C and charging rates and data speeds when it comes to the iPhone 15 and its switch away from using Apple's proprietary Lightning cable. The same goes for the AirPods Pro, which also are getting a refresh to USB-C.
While there are some very real considerations to make note of when it comes to USB-C cables and iPhones — faster is (mostly) better when it comes to charging and transferring data — I couldn't care less about either of those things when it comes to my AirPods Pro.
Apple has upgraded the AirPods Pro with lossless audio, sort of
Amid the slew of new Apple products launched today, only the tiniest mention was made of the fact that Apple has also given the AirPods Pro Gen 2 wireless earbuds a not-so-minor refresh. Along with the expected addition of USB-C, making the AirPods Pro the first Apple headphones to ditch the Lightning connector, Apple has also given the iconic white noise-canceling earbuds the ability to do lossless audio wirelessly -- something that has never been seen on the AirPods family before, and is even a rarity among non-Apple wireless audio devices.
There is, however, a catch. The "groundbreaking wireless audio protocol" that allows for lossless audio at 20-bit/48 kHz (a better-than-CD-quality resolution) is powered by the AirPods Pro's H2 chip, but for now, it only works when paired with the upcoming Apple Vision Pro headset. At the moment, Qualcomm's aptX Lossless Bluetooth codec (when used with compatible wireless headphones and smartphones) is the only technology that supports lossless audio wirelessly, and even that technology is limited to 16-bit/48kHz.
In one of the least-kept surprises of today's iPhone 15 event, Apple announced that the second-generation AirPods Pro are switching to USB-C for their charging case.
That's a big deal because they'll now use the same charger as the iPad and MacBook — and also because they can use any other USB-C cable that you've got laying around. And because we're not talking about a device with a huge battery capacity, you don't need to worry so much about whether you have the right USB-C cable. Things should charge just fine, and fast enough, given that the battery case only sports a 523 mAh battery.
