Embargo Jan 25 00:00: Bowers & Wilkins’ wireless earbuds get better battery life and longer range - Digital Trends

1 year ago 49

Simon Cohen

By Simon Cohen January 25, 2023 12:01AM

Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) has released caller versions of its 2 models of noise-canceling earbuds: the Pi5 S2 ($299) and Pi7 S2 ($399). They’re disposable starting January 25 and diagnostic tiny but invited improvements to their predecessors, the PI5 and PI7, which launched successful 2021. The institution says some caller models person improved artillery beingness and amended Bluetooth connectivity.

The earbuds present travel successful caller colour options. The Pi7 S2 are disposable successful Satin Black, Canvas White, and Midnight Blue. The Pi5 S2, which has seen a $50 terms summation from the PI5, travel successful 3 caller colour options astatine launch: Cloud Gray, Storm Gray, and Spring Lilac, with a 4th colour — Sage Green — coming aboriginal this spring.

B&W says that the refreshed earbuds person amended artillery life, but it’s lone a humble summation implicit the erstwhile versions. The Pi5 S2’s stated artillery beingness is present 5 hours, up by 30 minutes implicit the PI5’s 4.5 hours. Strangely, the charging lawsuit has a smaller capableness than the PI5 — conscionable 19 hours alternatively of 20 (24 hours successful total). For their part, the Pi7 S2 besides person a claimed 5 hours of continuous playback connected a azygous charge, versus the 4 hours of the PI7. Its lawsuit maintains the aforesaid 16-hour reservoir for a full of 21 hours of use.

Bluetooth operating region is the lone different hardware change. B&W claims you tin present enactment 25 meters (about 82 feet) betwixt these earbuds and their euphony source, which is simply a sizeable leap from the claimed 10 meters (almost 33 feet) of the first-gen products. It credits a alteration of worldly — the beveled aluminum extremity caps are present integrative — and a alteration successful the Bluetooth antenna design. Unfortunately, Bluetooth Multipoint, which was missing from the archetypal generation, hasn’t been added.

On the bundle broadside of the story, B&W is continuing to consolidate each of its products nether its Bowers & Wilkins Music app. The PI7 and PI5 were controlled via the company’s Headphones app, but this was strictly constricted to performing changes to the buds’ settings. Under the Music app, the Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 tin beryllium managed, on with immoderate different compatible B&W speakers, similar its Panorama 3 Soundbar oregon its latest wireless headphones, the Px7 S2 and Px8. The app besides gives users nonstop entree to respective streaming services similar Qobuz, Tidal, and Deezer.

Apart from these insignificant changes, each different aspects of the earbuds stay the same. Both connection progressive sound cancellation (ANC), transparency mode, an IP54 rating for h2o and particulate resistance, and deterioration sensors for euphony auto-pause and resume. The Pi7 S2 besides retains the clever Bluetooth transmitter relation wrong its case. Simply link the lawsuit to an analog oregon integer root with the included cables and the lawsuit volition enactment arsenic a wireless nexus to the earbuds utilizing aptX Low Latency, making it a useful enactment for gamers who request the shortest imaginable clip betwixt seeing thing connected the surface and proceeding it done the earbuds.