- Beats has finally made Powerbeats pro 2 official
- Headphones are the first of the rhythms to present heart rate sensors
- Cancellation of active noise, longer battery and wireless load
It has been a long time, but Beats has officially announced the Powerbeats Pro 2 after innumerable teasers shared and many rumors. Six years have passed since the original Powerbeats arrived at the scene, and the successors aim to overcome them in many ways.
The iconic hooks for the ears remain, although the design is a bit more modern and thin in general. However, the most important thing is the updates under the hood. For example, the outbreaks adopt the H2 chip of Airpods Pro 2 and introduce a new technology, including a custom double layer controller and a heart rate sensor, the first for any rhythm product or headphones manufactured in Apple.
Beats has been working for this set of features for Powerbeats Pro 2 for a long time. “When we were devising Powerbeats Wireless during the acquisition process, this is the list of features we wanted,” said Matthew Costello, Vice President of Apple Hardware Engineering. The development of the Beats characteristics combined with Apple technologies to take it through the finish line was required.
Then, we unpack Powerbeats pro 2 a little more. If part of the Faithful beats that has been waiting for its next entry on the ear headphones, know that the price has not increased from the original. Powerbeats Pro 2 costs $ 249.99 in the United States, $ 249.99 in the United Kingdom and $ 399.95 in Australia. In the launch, the headphones come in four colors: jet black, fast sand, hyper purple and electric orange.
What is new to Powerbeats Pro 2?
The entire Powerbeats Pro 2 package is slightly thinned, but ears hooks ensure that they do not fall. The ears, the main body and the bridge that connects the two are all thinner, and that bridge is more a very angled bar. All this makes them remain very comfortable in your ears, but the people who hate the capacitive buttons in the headphones will be pleased that the beats logo remains physical and that a volume rocker is on the bridge.
Within each Powerbeats Pro 2 is Apple’s H2 chip, which feeds connectivity and processing on the device, and is the first of the best rhythm headphones in time to obtain a processor from your parent company, to use the chips of beats. It also places them at a level with Airpods Pro 2, and these are the first Powerbeats Pro with an active noise cancellation, a transparency mode and an adaptive equalizer to mix reproduction in real time.
Allering The Audio is a new 9.5 mm controller designed by beats and designed, established in a double layer and larger design than is used in other headphones in its current alignment. In addition, it has tuned to overcome the frequency range of the original, but it is still faithful to the rhythms, which means that you can expect a wide lower end. It is also combined with redesigned ventilation in the headphones, there is less visibility in these, and a new acoustic mesh.
The characteristic that helped me make my trip to the office a little better while I have been testing them is the support for space audio with Headtracking. This shines with Apple Music, I am a great admirer to have friends first to try it with Down the corner By Creedence Clearwater Revival, since it is a much more convincing immersive audio experience, and also with movies and television programs mixed in Dolby Atmos.
In addition, if you have an Apple Vision Pro, Powerbeats Pro 2 is the second audio product that admits ultra -low latency with the $ 3,500 space computer (start). Apple Airpods Pro 2 was the first.
A first for beats and for Apple: heart rate sensors in the headphones
However, the new thing is that Powerbeats Pro 2 is the first rhythm headphones, and Apple, to send with a heart rate sensor for each ear. I have been told that it was possible thanks to a deep collaboration between the two sides of the company, but it is clear that the biometric characteristic will be especially attractive to a Powerbeats market segment: athletes. That is why Beats tried them with more than 1,000 athletes.
The heart rate sensor for Powerbeats took some time to come alive and it was something Beats wanted for the original version. It is derived from the Apple Watch, but in reality it is 1/16 of the sensor size in the Apple Watch 10 series. It is really small, as can be seen in the palm of my hand. The sensor contains an LED sensor, a photodiod, an optical lens and an accelerometer. When you have both Powerbeats in your ears, you will take a reading.
I asked Costello how difficult it was to deliver a heart rate sensor in a headset and guarantee its precision. “We take advantage of much of the clock work, but we also develop our own algorithms based on the location in the ear. It was a great challenge, but we got there, ”he told me. The result is that each ear takes a reading in use, and the algorithms look at both and deliver a result that will populate as one reading every five seconds.
However, the heart rate sensor is not accessible everywhere, however, in the launch in the United States, it works with these iOS applications: squad, slope, staircase, open, runna, Yaoyao and Nike Run Club.
Heart rate readings will also appear in the health application of their iPhone, but if you carry an Apple Watch, those readings will have priority and there is no way to disable this. You can also notice that Apple Fitness Plus is not here at the launch. We did not get an exact answer of why, but Beats noticed that he is looking to expand support. On the contrary, the Powerbeats Pro 2 heart rate readings will work with any significant application of exercises or training.
It is remarkable that Apple and Beats chose to debut the heart rate sensor in Powerbeats Pro 2 first, despite the rumors that it is also reaching Airpods Pro 3, and the team is clearly excited. It also looks a lot like a beats movement, since many athletes choose to use beats.
Costello says: “We are extremely excited to bring this first technology focused on health to the Powerbeats Pro line, and we believe it is a real lane for future development.”
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Together with the monitoring of heart rate, Beats is finally delivering two things that were not necessarily perfect of the original Powerbeats Pro. For the second generation, the case is finally supporting the wireless load, and is 33% smaller, something Costello described as a “love work.” It is still bulging in your pocket, but it fits much better and is more a rounded rectangle than an adequate square. Each headset adheres magnetically in the appropriate place and will be recharged here.
And although the headphones obtain my integration into the iPhone and find my rhythms in Android through the complementary application, the case does not present the U1 chip as Airpods Pro 2 or a speaker in the case as Airpods 4 with an active noise cancellation.
Regarding the battery life, Beats promises up to 45 hours of reproduction without a enabled listening mode, including the recharges of the box. This means that it obtains 10 hours from the outbreaks with a full load, and three and a half recharges in the case. With anc or turned on, you get up to 36 hours of listening and only eight hours from the outbreaks. That is a considerable improvement about the original. They also include IPX4 sweat and water resistance, which is a little less robust than could have expected for sports headphones.
I have been trying them for about two weeks, and as a fan of the original Powerbeats Pro, I feel a lot at home here. The sound quality is better, and the ANC and transparency make the trick quite well to travel to the office and try to block the world around me. I like that the rhythms adhere to its roots with a strong low range, but as someone who changed Powerbeats Pro for Beats Fit Pro and Airpods Pro (1 and 2), I found myself taking a few days to get used to my ear. Hook design again.
I think many people looking for the best training headphones will be happy with them, especially with the ears hook for those who do not like the feeling of pinch. We will return soon with a complete review and a deeper immersion in fitness characteristics.
