It’s been leaked, it’s been seen on celebrity wrists, and now it’s finally here! And while it’s not a particularly earth-shattering design on the outside (if I asked you to draw a picture of a Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker, you’d probably draw something very similar to the image above), under the hood it’s “completely “reimagined and redesigned” for 2024. Gotta keep the business card capsule shape, right?
So, what’s new? You will now get a louder sound (more on this later); IP67 dust and water resistance; Bluetooth 5.3; USB-C for both audio pass-through and charging; a removable cord; a slightly angled construction (the drivers are tilted upwards by 20 degrees), iOS and Android compatibility plus up to 24 hours of battery life – which is double that of the Beats Pill+. And it comes for $149.99, that is. $50 less than the 2015 Beats Pill+ (which replaced the first Beats Pill from 2012). UK and Australian prizes are coming, please be patient.
The Beats Pill 2024 is also 10% lighter than its predecessor (a difference of 68 grams) and will ship from June 27 in your choice of Matte Black, Statement Red and Champagne Gold colors.
Beats Pill: Improved speakers and USB-C audio
What about the improved acoustic architecture? There’s a single, redesigned racetrack woofer (instead of the dual woofers in the Beats Pill+) and it’s now paired with stronger neodymium magnets. According to the makers, this helps the Beats Pill drive 28% more motor force to “move 90% more air volume,” in addition to “radial ribbing” to minimize low-end distortion. What they say is that it will sound bigger, but without distortion. There’s also a redesigned tweeter (note: one, not two again) mounted in its own housing for the treble.
The Beats Pill also doubles as a speakerphone for phone calls (a bit of a blast from the past, eh?), but by leveraging Beats’ proprietary noise-learning algorithm, Beats says this pill can better target the voice of the user.
Beats Pill also allows instant one-touch pairing on Android or iOS, plus Find My (iOS) or Find My Device (Android). Of course, this is essentially an Apple product, so some things from Apple’s walled garden are also present: iCloud linking to any device on your iCloud account; the ability to pass audio to your Apple Watch when your iPhone is out of range; customize the name of the pill in your Bluetooth menu. For additional features on Android, you can download the Beats app (requires Android 8.0 or later), but for iOS users, Beats believes the iOS integration is sufficient, just as your AirPods don’t have dedicated app support on your iPhone .
And now you can easily sync two Beats Pill speakers for double the audio, in Amplify mode (mono) or Stereo mode – although connecting up to 100 Pills (as you can with JBL PartyBoost, for example) isn’t a feature .
If you find your Beats Pill is running low on battery, Fast Fuel promises two hours of music playback from a 10-minute charge, but there’s another perk up the Pill’s sleeve: you can use the included USB-C cable to charge your phone to load or enjoy lossless audio from your laptop or other devices. And that is unusual.
How does it stack up against the likes of the Sonos Roam 2 – and is it one of the best Bluetooth speakers we’ve heard? We’ll let you know soon. But Beats certainly priced it competitively…