While the new Pixel 9 smartphones occupied much of the Made by Google event today, there was a new audio announcement in the form of the Pixel Buds Pro 2. These upgraded wireless earbuds are set to be Google's "most premium earbuds" to date with better active noise cancellation, sound quality, comfort and battery life all promised.
Google is making some bold claims about its new buds when it comes to sound quality and, while it hasn't shared anything regarding the specifications of these new buds, it claims these buds will deliver an "authentic" and "awesome" sound – we'll have to take its word for that.
There are some more quantifiable upgrades to these new buds, thankfully, with battery life and ANC performance both getting a boost. Starting with ANC, Google says these new buds are twice as effective at eliminating ambient sounds compared to the outgoing Pixel Buds, and battery life is reportedly "significantly" longer with eight hours of listening with ANC on or 30 hours with the charging case included.
It attributes all of the above improvements to the new Tensor A1 chip, which Google has developed in-house much like the Tensor G-series chips in its Android smartphones. This new chip can reportedly deliver ultra-low latency audio processing while adapting the noise cancelling up to three million times per second.
The new chip will also deliver "accurate, highly detailed and immersive music", even in spaces with abundant ambient noise. Google says it delivered this audio upgrade via multipath processing, which supposedly gives your music a dedicated highway lane on the processor that is entirely separate from the continuous processing required for the ANC.
Despite these buds having a plethora of audio upgrades and enhanced battery life, they are a claimed 27 per cent smaller than the previous generation, and Google goes as far as to call them "the smallest premium earbuds on the market". They're also 24 per cent lighter than the first-generation Pixel Buds or, as Google puts it, "the lightest noise cancelling earbuds in the category".
Comfort also gets an upgrade without sacrificing the security and stability of the bud thanks to the "twist to lock in" feature. This allows users to twist the buds to get a more secure or loose fit depending on the user's preference or use case.
There are, of course, a heap of new AI features too including hands-free operation of the Gemini smart assistant baked directly into the buds, as well as being able to access the new conversational "talk live" AI mode which allows for more natural interaction with Gemini.
The Pixel Buds Pro 2 comes in four finishes to match the new Pixel 9 smartphones including Hazel (grey), Porcelain (beige), Wintergreen (green) and Peony (pink). They cost £219 / $229 / AU$TBC and are available to pre-order now.
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